Last summer, the “We Were and Still Are” team embarked on a documentation journey to the abandoned Palestinian village of Tantura, south of Haifa.

Before the trip, we asked the team members to read The Tantouriya, the novel by the late Palestinian writer Radwa Ashour, so that they could develop a deeper connection with the village and learn about what had happened there before arriving.

Once there, after walking through what remained of the coastal village, we contacted Widad Al-Fallu, a Tantura native living in Syria, so that she could see her village live on video for the first time in 73 years.

Widad was only 12 years old when, according to her testimony, Zionist militias killed her father during the Tantura massacre. She then began a long journey as a refugee, living in several places, most notably Yarmouk Camp, before eventually settling in Damascus.

A few days ago, Widad passed away in Damascus.

Images of Tantura were among the most vivid memories that accompanied her during the final month of her life.

She died far from Tantura—a village that, according to the source, was subjected to ethnic cleansing, where the parking lot serving Dor Moshav beach was later built on its land, above a mass grave said to contain 240 victims of the massacre.

Source: Youad