"At the end of the day, the old people come to the store, they are in their sixties, and when I turn on the record player, they start crying," Jamal Hemmou, 58, told AFP.

Digital music has eclipsed records in Nablus, in the northern occupied West Bank, as elsewhere in the world, much to Mr. Hemmou's chagrin.

He started repairing record players, as an autodidact, when he was 17, listening to the great Arab voices of the time, he explains, sitting in front of his modest workshop.

There are record players from the 1960s and 1970s and even several gramophones from the 1940s.

He estimates that he sells five machines a month, at varying prices.

But his store is sometimes forced to close.

Nablus is on the front line of an outbreak of deadly violence that has shaken the West Bank, Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967, for almost a year.

Mr. Hemmou's street was the scene of heavy fighting, as Israeli forces carried out raids against a group of fighters, the "Lions' Den", based in the Old City.

"As soon as someone is killed during an Israeli raid, especially in the Old City, we close up shop," explains Mr. Hemmou, who is delighted "to still be alive".

Photos of slain fighters adorn the shutters of his shop.

He mobilizes himself by playing patriotic songs.

"It's my way of resisting" against the Israeli occupation, he says.

Musical heritage

His passion for music comes from his family in which "almost everyone is a musician" and in particular from his father, who "singed because he liked old singers".

Palestinian Jamal Hemmou, the last vinyl repairer and record player seller in the Palestinian city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, shows his vinyl collection at the entrance to his workshop, January 17, 2023 © JAAFAR ASHTIYEH / AFP

With this father, he shares a passion for Shadia, an Egyptian diva who chained the tubes between the 1940s and 1980s.

"She sang with the heart, she sang with emotion, she told a story", says the one who also quotes the immense Lebanese star Fairouz and the Egyptian Abdel Halim Hafez, male counterpart of Oum Kalthoum, in his musical pantheon.

For Mr. Hemmou, records don't just deliver songs, they are an essential part of Palestinian and Arab heritage.

"Modern singers do not know what they are singing. On the other hand, the ancients know how to extract what is deeply rooted in us and revive our heritage", he believes.

"When you play a record, it sends us back 50 years," he marvels.

The man with the salt-and-pepper hair and mustache says he tried to get his two sons, aged 27 and 26, to work in the shop and introduce them to Arab and Palestinian music, without success.

Palestinian Jamal Hemmou, the last vinyl repairer and record player seller in the Palestinian city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, holds an antique phonograph at the entrance to his workshop, January 17, 2023 © JAAFAR ASHTIYEH / AFP

"They're not interested. They tell me to turn it off, they don't want to listen," he laments.

But the one known in Nablus as Abu Shaadi enjoys notoriety elsewhere.

“My clients come from all over the West Bank, from Jerusalem, from Nazareth, from Bethlehem, from Jenin, from Qalqiliya”.

"They come from all over Palestine to buy from me," he rejoices.

© 2023 AFP