Easter in the destroyed Palestinian village of Maalul

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=690714

MAALUL (Ma'an) -- As thousands of Palestinian Christians descend on Jerusalem for Holy Week festivities, the villagers of Maalul are busy preparing their own Easter celebration for the one day a year Israeli authorities allow them to hold services in their village church.

Their forefathers were expelled from their homes in the village in 1948 by Israeli forces, and today hundreds of their descendants live in nearby Nazareth, Yafa al-Naseriyye, and Haifa.

They are forbidden from returning to the village, even though it sits mere kilometers away from their new homes.

But in 2003, more than 50 years after they were forced to flee their homes, villagers returned to Maalul to celebrate Easter in the Catholic Church, one of the few structures that had not been demolished by authorities.