Summary
Free, trilingual (Arabic, Hebrew, English) app created by Zochrot in 2014 for individual tourists to navigate depopulated Palestinian villages, a digital signposting that positions return as the “imperative redress of the Nakba” (Invited to Witness — Solidarity Tourism across Occupied Palestine, PDF p.191-193).
Details
- For each locality the app provides the district, population before occupation, occupation date, occupying unit (for example, the Irgun), Jewish settlements on the land before occupation, and Jewish settlements built on the village area after occupation, with GPS coordinates and maps (PDF p.192).
- Its archival images, videos and historical information come from Zochrot’s archive, largely indebted to Walid Khalidi’s research, and from users, who can add family archives of their own; each site has tabs for photos, videos, directions and profiles of users who follow the village’s fate (PDF p.192).
- Zochrot media director Raneen Jeries, in Ian Black’s May 2014 article: “There is an app for everything these days, and this one will show all the places that have been wiped off the map. It means that Palestinians in Ein Hilweh refugee camp in Lebanon, say, can follow what happened to the village in Galilee that their family came from — and they will get a notification every time there’s an update” (PDF p.193).
Related pages
Invited to Witness — Solidarity Tourism across Occupied Palestine, Zochrot, Walid Khalidi, Nakba, Right of Return