Al jazeera News :
Ramallah, occupied West Bank – “Exile is like death,” Ahmad Attoun, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), told Al Jazeera. “I can’t explain my relationship to Jerusalem. It is part of my soul.”
“Jerusalem is now just a few metres away from me, but I can’t enter. There are no words to describe the pain we are feeling,” he said. Attoun, along with PLC members Mohammad Totah, Mohammad Abu Teir and former Palestinian minister Khaled Abu Arafeh, were forcibly deported from occupied East Jerusalem in 2011 after Israel’s interior minister revoked their Jerusalem residencies over allegations of “breaching loyalty”
Ramallah, occupied West Bank – “Exile is like death,” Ahmad Attoun, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), told Al Jazeera. “I can’t explain my relationship to Jerusalem. It is part of my soul.”
“Jerusalem is now just a few metres away from me, but I can’t enter. There are no words to describe the pain we are feeling,” he said. Attoun, along with PLC members Mohammad Totah, Mohammad Abu Teir and former Palestinian minister Khaled Abu Arafeh, were forcibly deported from occupied East Jerusalem in 2011 after Israel’s interior minister revoked their Jerusalem residencies over allegations of “breaching loyalty”
to the Israeli state. Attoun’s deportation from the city wreaked havoc on his life. He only sees his family on weekends when they travel to Ramallah, where he now resides. His eight-year-old daughter has never experienced living with her father. “I wish I could see her just once in her school uniform when she comes home,” Attoun said, noting that his family has continued to reside in Jerusalem despite his expulsion.
