Qasi Mustafa Abu Khalil and his family packed all of their belongings into one car and fled their home in the middle of the night. They were too nervous to look back as they left Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq—all eyes were glued on the road for Islamic State (IS) checkpoints, and the sky for Iraqi Government military jets.
The Abu Khalil’s have lived as refugees in Iraq since their family fled Palestine in 1948 during Israel’s war of independence, which forcibly displaced over 700,000 Palestinians from their homes and into the life of a refugee.
Today, like many Palestinians in Iraq, Abu Khalil and his family find themselves fleeing for their lives yet again. Over 300 Palestinians have recently fled the city of Mosul, which was taken over early June by The Islamic State (IS), formerly known as the Islamic State of of Iraq and the Syria (ISIS), an offshoot of the Islamic militant group Al Qaeda.
“In my mind I don’t think I will ever come back to Mosul,” Abu Khalil told Mondoweiss.
Since IS’s siege of Mosul and the surrounding areas an estimated one million people have fled the area seeking refuge. These refugees have reported whippings in the streets, executions for smoking tobacco hookah pipes and a crackdown on the movement of women. Regular life has been turned upside down in Mosul, where IS militants decide the rules and who they believe are following them.
Abu Khalil said the problems in Mosul started with the IS’s takeover of the city but continued with the Iraqi Army’s airstrikes against the city after the seige. The airstrikes are meant to target IS but the people fleeing say they feel they are indiscriminate—leaving the people of Mosul constantly afraid from both the militants on the ground and the planes in the sky.
“It is scary now that these Islamic State people are in Mosul, because we can’t predict them, we don’t know what they want or if they like Palestinians. And now the Iraqi government is bombing everything. They’re doing this everywhere, the army airstrikes can hit anyone at anytime,” Abu Khalil said.
Issa Mustafa and his whole family have also fled Mosul, choosing an uncertain future over taking the risk that IS will decide being Palestinian is some sort of infraction.
“We got out of the whole situation in Mosul, it’s not safe to the people, to my family, to the Palestinians living there. We had a problem from the Islamic State from when they came into Mosul. Because of this reason we left and got out, we don’t know where these Islamic State people are from, who supports them, what directions they have, or whether or not they will like Palestinians,” Mustafa told Mondoweiss.
His six children are all young and remain unaware of why they left their home at 2am to pile into their family car and flee from the only home they have known throughout their short lives. Mustafa is at least happy his children are young, he hopes by not knowing, they will keep their innocence.
Refugees fleeing Mosul have sought refuge in newly set up refugee camps beside or in Iraqi Kurdistan, or if they are lucky, with family and friends that live in safer areas under Kurdish Peshmerga control. However for Palestinians living in Mosul leaving the city was not easy and came with its own risks due to their nationality.
When IS came to their homes most Palestinians pretended to be Iraqi, in case being Palestinian would put them in danger.
“If they knew I was Palestinian, some of the Islamic State would probably want to kill me. The Islamic State people don’t know if we are Palestinian or not because we have the same accent as Iraqis, I have talked to them when they have come to my house and they have no idea I am Palestinian. But I was nervous when we left the city, if they ask you at a checkpoint for ID they will know we are Palestinian, and I don’t know what they would do after. On the Iraqi ID it says Palestinian refugee on it,” Abu Khalil said.
Many Palestinians still reside in Mosul, but can’t afford to leave. According Abu Khalil and Mustafa, most Palestinian families in the city are poor and just the travel to leave the city is out of their means.
The Palestinian Consulate in Erbil, Kurdish Iraq, is doing its best to keep up with all the cases of new Palestinian refugees fleeing areas under siege by IS, while attempting to help Palestinians avoid the newly created, and already crowded, UNHCR’s IDP camps.
“Some families are able to stay with friends they know or family they know in Erbil, many people in one room, but others are having to stay in tents in Khazir IDP Camp. We are trying to avoid this. And there still remain many Palestinian families left in Mosul as they simply cannot afford to leave, their only option has become to stay in this dangerous city of Mosul, we can only do so much,” Palestinian Ambassador Nazmi Hazouri told Mondoweiss.
Leaving Mosul has resulted in the displacement yet again of some Palestinian families, who are often treated like outsiders in their host country.
Mustafa said fears his sons will become refugees yet again with their future families, just as his he and his forefathers have for three generations before him.
“My grandfather and my father were refugees and now I am a refugee again and my sons are also now refugees from this,” Mustafa said. “My grandfather and myself are two time refugees, him in 1948 and 1967, me in 1967 and now. For my family it is now three times a refugee, 1948, 1967 and now. Palestinians have been tortured more than any other group in the world.”
Same ISIS israel have no problem with, even support?
That story sounds to me like it has been cooked up. I want to tell you why. Take this key paragraph:
From all what is known it’s very clear that ISIS or IS are not anti-Palestinian, and not so few ISIS members are Palestians themselves. There are rabidly sectarian, they are brutal, they are medieval extremists, but they are anti-national, for the ummah, they couldn’t care less what arab national ID an arab Sunni muslim has – they publish videos of their people being proud to burn their national ID cards, because their now only part of the ummah. As Palestinians are usual Sunni arabs, they have not more to fear as any other Sunni arab. The ones who have really to fear ISIS (and I find the argument that genocide might be a correct word for what ISIS is doing to them quite substantial) are Shia, Allawi, Alevi, Christians, Yezides and Kurds (who are suspected of being PKK/YPG communist infidels) as ISIS sectarian violence specificially target these sects with persecution and violence up to murder and mass murder for having the wrong religion. As far as I understand everyone in Mosul knows this because large parts of Mosul are run by IS, ISIS, ISI, Al Qaeda in Iraq or however these wahhabi jihadis call themselves for many years now.
Add to this this paragraph:
Really? Problems in that city where large parts were run by Al Qaeda and similar violent extremists for years, which had regular bombings, Al Qaeda openly collecting taxes, official Iraqi courts run by Al Qaeda, plenty of murders for illoyalty with Al Qaeda, and so on, problems started this June? I find such an assertion just outright ridicolous.
I also note that the typical western propaganda meme against the Iraqi army is there: “the Iraqi government is bombing everything.” Really? Are we really to believe the story cooked by GCC anti-shia sectarian propagandists (and their Zionist helpers in western anti-Iranian Hasbara) that the evil Iranian-aligned Shia prime minister Maliki bombs “everything” – just because he’s pleased to bomb the Sunnis of Mosul? That said, the Iraqi airforce is doing airstrikes, and I guess it causes substantial collateral damage, but the meme pushed that the Iraqi airforce is bombing “everything” or even specifically civilians is ridiculous.
Finally, three English language websites I’ld recommend to get a better idea of what’s currently going on in Mosul and Iraq then from reports from Erbil.
http://mosuleye.wordpress.com/
http://www.iraqinews.com/
http://www.ninanews.com/english/News_Menu.asp?Zr07_VQ=K
I agree Bandolero- I was gathering mangoes over at other sites and it’s pretty transparent that the Hasbarists are wetting themselves over the 40,000 hill people being held hostage by ISIS, and the ISIS antics in general, as it provides a much-needed distraction from the Zionist filth on their Gaza murder spree.
And of course, they view it as a moral equivalency-or worse, as ISIS are non-white and non-Xtian/Jewish after all, and therefore beneath contempt- but as bad as ISIS may be, I don’t see them getting 100% US Senate approval, or billions in US tax giveaways like we do for the ’51st State’ to continue its merry killing rampage.
Of the various descriptions of what ISIS is about this is the best I believe.
http://rt.com/news/166836-isis-isil-al-qaeda-iraq/
”All you need to know about ISIS and what is happening in Iraq”
In a nutshell it is a ‘Sunni’ militant group. Even more rabid and probably smarter than ALQ who it broke from.
ALQ was dedicated to removing ‘corrupt western influence’ from the ME and Islam.
ISIS had doubled down on that and then some.
Some try to claim the US is funding ISIS but I cant find or see any benefit to US interest in doing that—Saudi, otoh kicked started ISIS with their funding of the Syria Sunni rebels.
My guessing says maybe Saudi and US, mostly Saudi ,will let ISIS clear out Shittes in countries where Sauds want them cleaned out and then try to take out ISIS before it turns to taking out the Sauds also for their few, but what AQL and now ISIS, consider too liberal reforms in Islamic Saudi Arabia.
“”Palestinians have been tortured more than any other group in the world.””
We have to undo the damage and give these people their stolen human rights back.
In the meantime, I think that Iran would probably give them safe refuge.