Israeli Seized Abu-Ghazaleh Jaffa Hotel Re-Emerges As Memory Site for the Nakba and Lost Palestine

Jaffa - The Abu-Ghazaleh Hotel in Jaffa, at the address of N.2 Magen Avraham (previously Al-Malik Ghazi Street), built by prominent business owner Tawfiq Abu- Ghazaleh and owned by the Abu-Ghazaleh family before they were expelled from Palestine in 1948, has been revealed as an important relic and memory site featuring as part of a series of Nakba day initiatives seeking to document and raise awareness of Jaffa’s erased memory, history and the absence of the Palestinians deported from the historic Palestinian Mediterranean city in 1948.

The remarkable discovery was revealed in an article by photojournalist Silvia Boarini published by the independent, nonprofit award-winning website Electronic Intifada on May 24, 2016. As with most of the properties belonging to expelled Palestinians, the Abu-Ghazaleh hotel was seized from its rightful owners after the illegal creation of the State of Israel. The article explains that after it was seized, the Abu-Ghazaleh hotel was divided into small apartments and rented to Jewish families and reveals that the building has now resurfaced as one of a number of historical landmarks, private homes and properties exhibited as Nakba memory sites and notable relics in an initiative entitled "Houses beyond the Hyphen” which took place in May 2016. The project was initiated by Zochrot, an Israeli organization dedicated to rediscovering the country’s Palestinian history, and which aims "to promote the Jewish Israeli public’s responsibility for the ongoing Nakba and to exercise the Palestinian refugees’ right of return as its necessary historical redress." In memory of the Nakba, the “Houses Beyond the Hyphen” project hosted a series of alternative tours including video installations and walking tours in private properties that had been owned and inhabited by their original Palestinian proprietors until 1948, amongst them the historic Abu-Ghazaleh Hotel.

The aim of the project was to uncover what has been happening there since the fall of Jaffa in 1948. The name of the project refers to the the hyphenated city of “Tel Aviv-Jaffa,” in which the newer Tel Aviv, established by Zionist settlers early in the 20th century, has dominated over its ancient Palestinian neighbour.

Featuring exclusive photos of the Abu-Ghazaleh property, the Electronic Intifada article also reveals that the building has never undergone any major renovation and still maintains its original features throughout, including the original metal rail adorning the staircase.

One most notable and significant historical memento exhibited for viewing at the Abu-Ghazaleh property, and exclusively featured in the article, is a photograph of the actual official identity document belonging to a young Jaffa native, one of Tawfiq Abu Ghazaleh’s sons, the now world renowned, prominent and distinguished businessman Talal Abu-Ghazaleh, born in the city in 1938.

Dr Talal Abu-Ghazaleh is consulting with his lawyers to ascertain which legal recourse can be taken in order to reclaim rightful family ownership of the property.