Under bombardment.. UNRWA succeeds in transferring Palestinian refugee archives from Gaza and Jerusalem to Jordan

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) revealed details of a complex and secret logistical operation, during which it succeeded in transferring Palestinian refugee archives from the Gaza Strip and occupied Jerusalem to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. This step comes amid extremely dangerous security conditions, as the operation was described as the most important since the outbreak of the recent Israeli aggression on the Strip, to ensure the preservation of historical records from loss.

The announcement of the success of this mission coincided with the commemoration of the seventy-eighth anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba, where the agency confirmed that millions of documents are now safe in the capital Amman. The transfer and smuggling efforts continued for nearly ten consecutive months, during which employees faced real dangers due to the continuous Israeli shelling that targeted convoys and facilities, amid international fears of the destruction of the archive that documents Palestinian rights since 1948.

The transferred archive is not limited to the initial registration cards of refugees, but extends to include a documentary treasure of birth certificates, marriage contracts, and death certificates that have passed down through generations. These papers, according to international press reports, are considered the only legal and historical proof for thousands of families who were displaced from their original cities and villages during past decades, making their preservation an existential battle in itself.

Regarding the details of the transfer from the Gaza Strip, sources reported that employees had to work under the sound of explosions to collect documents and transfer them in a small truck from the heart of Gaza City. The truck took rough roads until it reached the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, and from there, its air transfer was coordinated via a Jordanian military aircraft that had arrived in the region as part of relief and humanitarian missions for the besieged Strip.

In occupied Jerusalem, the process of extracting documents was characterized by other complexities, especially in light of Israeli laws aimed at undermining UNRWA's work and the escalating attacks by settlers on its headquarters. Despite these challenges, specialized teams managed to pass the documents through the King Hussein Bridge connecting the West Bank and Jordan, away from the eyes of surveillance that feared the confiscation of this historical heritage.

Immediately upon the arrival of the boxes in the Jordanian capital, UNRWA mobilized its technical teams, where more than fifty employees are currently working around the clock to process this data. The current mission is to manually and accurately digitize all documents, with the aim of building an integrated digital database that ensures the preservation of the memory of Palestinian refuge from any future attempts at erasure or falsification.

The ambitious digitization project aims to enable every Palestinian refugee in the future to obtain their complete family tree and certified copies of their original documents with the click of a button. The agency believes that this measure gives refugees a sense of legal continuity and connection to their roots, amid continuous occupation attempts to remove the refugee issue from the international agenda and cancel the right of return.

Through this proactive step, UNRWA seeks to avoid a repeat of the historical tragedy that occurred in 1982, when the Israeli occupation army seized the Palestine Liberation Organization's archive during the invasion of Beirut. Sources confirm that protecting these papers is protecting the official Palestinian narrative in the face of attempts at obliteration, as each paper represents conclusive evidence of land ownership and historical right.

In conclusion, observers believe that the success of this operation represents a great moral and legal victory for Palestinians, as the preservation of civil records is an integral part of the national struggle. Efforts continue in Amman to ensure the archiving of every scrap of paper, believing that these documents are the identity that the occupation cannot confiscate, no matter the strength of the war machine or systematic policies of oppression.

These documents represent the only evidence for hundreds of Palestinians who were displaced from their villages, and every paper in them tells the story of an entire people.