Video .. The oldest graves digger in Palestine retires from the profession

Awad al-Rajoub - Hebron

From grave to grave, from well to well, and from one cave to another; the Palestinian nineteen Salama Muhammad Abdel-Fattah (Abu Muhammad) spent more than half of his life, after rock excavation took a profession.

In his village west of Hebron, south of the West Bank, Abu Muhammad dug dozens of tombs, wells and caves, but today, when he is close to ninety, he retires from the profession and succumbs to old age, as he “stood the wheel”, as he put it.

The Palestinian elderly and peasant was born to a female farmer in the late 1920s in the town of Dura, and worked alongside the profession of washing the dead and in agriculture, especially olives, and was known for his pure oil.

How to dig graves?
Al-Jazeera Net escorted Hajj Salama to one of the graves he recently dug, and he explained in detail how the grave is dug with the help of one of his sons, how he chooses the place, and why he prefers the graves engraved in the rock. Salama appeared to be in better health than his peers at the same age, possibly due to the early dressing of his body to work.

Abu Muhammad remained throughout the practice of his profession for fifty years, maintaining his traditional costume, and once he reaches his workplace he takes a cover and puts aside this costume consisting of Hatta, mind, kunnabaz, pants and jacket, he wears the work clothes, and begins his battle with the rocks within his own policy.

Every now and then there is nothing wrong with a little rest in the shade of a tree and breathtaking with a cup of tea or a cup of coffee from the cemetery neighbors.

Drilling tools
Simple and available tools are all that Sheikh Salama has: the cutter (a solid ax dedicated to digging rocks), a trowel (pellet), a cradle (a ten-kilogram iron hammer or so), nails to break up rocks, and the stand (earthen container).

As for the idea of ​​digging graves, it came without planning, as he started digging a grave for one of his relatives, then followed up the request. He says that some of the graves he excavated buried three or more people, and some were empty since they were excavated decades ago.

Rock or hollow graves in the rock have a special equation for our guest, they have a certain level of landing no more than a meter from the surface of the earth and measurements for the door (60 cm x 60 cm), and the area - which says that the customer is the one that determines it - is usually four square meters .

Unique feature
What distinguishes graves carved into the rock is that it can be re-opened and more buried in the dead, and thus the problem of the lack of graves and crowds is overcome.

As for the time it takes to excavate the grave, he says that it varies from one grave to another according to the hardness of the rock, and most of it ranges between ten days and two weeks, at a cost that does not exceed four hundred dollars.

Abu Muhammed was also famous for a long time digging rain collecting wells and caves, according to customer requests, especially in rural areas that were not connected to electricity and water services.

Shortly before his rest, he stopped digging graves and wells. Abu Muhammad concluded his journey by digging four graves in a cemetery that he stopped from his land for his family.

The Palestinians suffer from crowded graves, most of which are provided by donors, and are widely spread among residential and populated areas due to the occupation preventing the establishment of graves in large and remote areas.