UN Photo Archive Tells Story Of Palestinian Exodus
By KARIN LAUB and IBRAHIM BARZAK
Associated Press
RAFAH REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza Strip (AP) -- A 1975 photo shows Palestinian refugee Fathiyeh Sattari, her eyes wide with worry, as she presents her malnourished baby boy to a doctor at a clinic run by a U.N. aid agency.
The photo is one of 525,000 in the agency's archive being digitized to preserve a record of one of the world's most entrenched refugee problems, created in what the Palestinians call the "Nakba," or "catastrophe" - their uprooting in the war over Israel's 1948 creation.
As Palestinians mark the Nakba's 66th anniversary Thursday, the photos tell the story of the refugee crisis' transition from temporary to seemingly permanent. Tent camps of the 1950s have turned into urban slums with some alleys so narrow residents can only walk single file past drab multi-story buildings.
The mother and son of the 1975 photo are part of a family that is now in its fourth generation as refugees. Sattari's parents fled their home in what is now Israel in 1948. Fathiyeh was born in the Gaza Strip and raised her own family in the Rafah refugee camp. Her son Hassan - the baby with the gaunt face in the photo - is now a 40-year-old father of five, living in another camp.
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