Occupied Jerusalem

- The Israeli bullet - which assassinated her days before the anniversary of the Nakba - did not prevent her from leaving her mark, as every year, as Sherine Abu Aqleh began her coverage early from the village of "Shaab", east of the city of Acre, north of occupied Palestine, and accompanied on the ground an annual return march towards The village of standard depopulated.

Sherine walked with the refugees, saying, "They came to tell the occupation the memory of your independence is our catastrophe. They brought their children in a clear passage of the right of return from adults to children."

It was not a recorded text. Rather, Shireen improvised perfectly reflecting her long experience, unaware that this report, which was broadcast on May 6, 2022, would be her last report on refugees, the dream of return and the catastrophe, until she was martyred at the gates of Jenin camp;

One of the most prominent evidence of the Palestinian Nakba, which has been going on for 74 years.

Sherine was not only the daughter of Jerusalem, but she toured all the lands of historic Palestine, until she was left in every village and city, loving Koha when she left.

Hope to return

The memory of the Palestinian Nakba falls this year without the martyr Shireen Abu Aqleh, who throughout a quarter of a century of journalistic work has been keen to cover the memory as if she were covering it for the first time, searching for the unspoken stories of the refugees, wandering among the ruins of the abandoned villages, giving hope to return with balanced words and a calm voice Confident and highly professional language.

Since joining the Al-Jazeera network in 1997, Sherine has presented dozens of press reports on the anniversary of the Nakba, which is symbolically commemorated on May 15 of each year, and presented in an easy, absurd manner. Documentary and media, documented and studied.

A momentary return to the Golan Heights 2011

Al Jazeera Net monitored part of Sherine's coverage of the memory of the Nakba, starting in 2011, on the 63rd anniversary of the Nakba, when the occupation killed 5 Palestinian refugees who tried to cross the Syrian border towards the occupied Golan Heights, and some of them were able to cross the separation fence for a few minutes.

Sherine said at the time, "They achieved their dream, even for a while. The armies, no matter how strong they are, will not guarantee secure borders as long as they are left behind by rightful owners who refuse to recognize them."

In the same year, Sherine appeared in a different form, as she appeared from inside Al-Jazeera studio in Ramallah, with her guests whom she interviewed about the Arab revolutions and their impact on the Nakba.

This meeting revealed her ingenuity in presenting and managing interviews, far from her field news prowess.

Present in the refugee camps

Shireen devoted a lot of her coverage to the memory of the Nakba for the Palestinian camps. She visited Balata camp in Nablus in 2013, to shed light on the Jaffa Cultural Center, which collected the belongings of the refugees and wrote oral history from the time of the Nakba in 1948, to keep the memory fresh in the minds of future generations.

In 2014, the story of Abu Aqila from Al-Jalazun camp, north of Ramallah, documented the testimony of elderly refugee Atta Sharakah, who dreams of returning to his village, Beit Nabala, Ramle District.

At the end of her reports, Sherine stood in front of the camera, saying with hope, "The return is a right and not just a dream, and as the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish said, I am here, and here I am."

And near Al-Jalazun, Sherine was in the Al-Amari camp in 2019, to meet the refugee from Ramleh, Riad Fleifel, who insists on returning after 71 years of asylum. In the same report, she spoke about the impact of the Palestinian division and the deal of the century on the memory of the Nakba and the right of return.

depopulated Jerusalem villages

The displaced villages of Jerusalem had a large share in Shirin’s coverage, as they hosted dozens of displaced people from the first and second generations of the Nakba, and returned with some of them to their villages to stand on their ruins, and document a compelling Palestinian presence in them, as they did in 2020 when she boarded her vehicle with the Jerusalemite Jacob Odeh to visit his displaced village Lafta Gharbi Jerusalem.

Between the past and the present

From Jaffa, the Mermaid of the Sea, Sherine refuted the story of those who said that Palestine is a land without a people, wandering the streets of the old city in 2018. She tells the story of 4 cinemas that were in them before the Nakba, after which she met in the same report the artist Amer Shomali, director of the movie “The Wanted 18”, Talking about the state of Palestinian cinema before and after the Nakba.

Sherine combined the past and the present when talking about the Nakba. In 2014, she met young men from Jaffa who spoke about the challenges and difficulties Palestinians face inside the Green Line to preserve their identity on the 66th anniversary of the Nakba.

visible humanization

In the city of Ramallah, which received the vast majority of Sherine Abu Akleh’s field coverage in general and the Nakba in particular, in 2015 she relayed the story of Palestinian musicians and singers who worked to collect art archives before the Nakba, and reproduced old music records within the “Nawa” Foundation.

Accompanied by the eighty refugee Fatima Sharakah, Sherine visited in 2017, the art exhibition "Say My Bird" in Ramallah, to recall with her the stories of asylum inside the exhibition, which included photographs and collectibles documenting this.

The veteran reporter asked her guest about the one she brought with her when she was displaced from her village, Beit Nabala, and the latter replied, moved by "Lahf, mattress, oil and thyme."

Sherine concluded her report by saying, "Every refugee carried with him what he considered dear to his heart. He carried his documents and the key to his house, with the certainty that he would return one day, even after decades."

Thus, Sherine always knew how to question her guest, and behave with her human sense before the journalist;

Its material was a milestone in the memory of the Nakba, sticking to the memory of all who witnessed it.