JORDAN. Zarqa. 27 November, 2023.

Halimeh Hussien Al-Keswany, 85, also known as Umm Al-Abed, gained stardom following the viral spread of a video in which she sang for Palestine. Hailing from Beit Iksa, a village north of Jerusalem that to this day remains under Israeli occupation.
Umm Al-Abed remebers: “Our village faced displacement in 1948, becoming the last to evacuate due to coercive measures and the eventual destruction of the village. Subsequently, we relocated to Ash-Shunah in Jordan and settled in Zarqa in 1967.”
After the song went viral online, Umm Al-Abed said she starting receiving calls from Khaled Mashaal and Ismail Haniyeh, leaders of Hamas, congratulating her for her significant impact in the community.

Zarqa camp is the oldest Palestine refugee camp in Jordan. One of the four camps established in the country to accommodate the refugees who left Palestine as a result of the 1948 War, it was set up near the town of Zarqa by the International Committee of the Red Cross in 1949. It originally housed 8,000 refugees in an area of 0.18 square kilometers. UNRWA later replaced the original tents with concrete shelters and over the years the refugees have made improvements and added more rooms. The camp now resembles other urban quarters in Zarqa, and it houses over 21,000 registered refugees.