Mornings in Jenin

The novel begins with a description of early morning activity in the Palestinian village of Ein Hod. The villagers rise before dawn to pray and then move toward the olive groves to harvest olives.

In the fields at noon, Yehya, the family patriarch, surveys his family’s fertile land and his two hard-working sons with pride. He also observes his old friend and rival, Haj Salem, at work. The family has lunch seated on the ground, sharing the food provided by Basima, the boys’ mother. They pray and give each other their blessing before returning to work.

A few weeks later, Yehya’s son, Hasan, takes their produce to Jerusalem by truck, while his brother, Darweesh, accompanies him on his horse, Ganoosh.

In Jerusalem, Hasan meets his friend Ari, a German Jewish boy. The narrative moves back to 1937 when the two boys first met. They were united by “a mutual sense of inadequacy” (9) as Hasan had asthma and Ari limped from being beaten by a Brownshirt—a Nazi paramilitary—before his family fled Germany. The boys also shared a love of reading, poetry, and philosophy.

Despite having no common language at first, they became firm friends, and each was welcomed at the other’s home. Yehya, however, refused to let Hasan study in Jerusalem with Ari, fearing the boy would lose interest in the land he was to inherit. Years later, Yehya would deeply regret the decision, and Hasan has vowed to educate his children. Despite Yehya’s refusal, Ari’s mother, Mrs. Perlstein, secretly helped Hasan study until 1943 when the boys went their separate ways.

The chapter introduces Dalia, the youngest of 12 sisters in a Bedouin family that helps at the annual harvest on Hasan’s family’s land. The girl is spirited and wild, and most of the villagers, including Basima, disapprove of her. At the age of 11, Dalia accepts a ride on Ganoosh, offered by the young Darweesh. When Dalia falls from Ganoosh and breaks her ankle, her father punishes her by burning her hand with a hot iron in the town center. Dalia does not make a sound as it happens, containing the pain inside herself.

When Dalia is 14, Hasan tells his parents he will marry her because he is struck by her beauty and spirit. Despite his wife’s strong resistance to the idea, Yehya accepts as he is more concerned with the growing tension in the country. He has heard news that armed Zionists are killing the British and Palestinians. Darweesh also has to accept the marriage, although he is secretly in love with Dalia too. Darweesh marries his cousin, a girl originally intended for Hasan.

Hasan and Dalia have a son, Yousef, 10 months after marrying. Basima has by now accepted and learned to love Dalia. When Dalia’s second baby is stillborn, Basima defends her against a villager’s implication that she deserved this.

Three years later, the first Israeli bomb explodes near Ein Hod, causing Basima to die of a heart attack. Dalia takes to visiting the cemetery alone, leaving Yousef and their second son, Ismael, at home. One day, Yousef picks up his crying baby brother in an attempt to comfort him but drops him back into his crib. A nail scratches his face from his cheek to his right eye, leaving a distinctive, permanent scar.

Ari visits Hasan in Ein Hod during the 40-day mourning period for Basima. Ari describes the developments toward Zionists claiming Palestinian land, with growing armies, weapons, and American support. He regrets the move toward a Jewish state but reminds Hasan of his own persecution in Germany. Hasan is angry about the idea of losing his home but is also sympathetic toward Ari’s family’s suffering.

The next section of the chapter begins in a didactic style, describing the Jewish armed gangs that murdered and bombed the British until they left Palestine and their massacres and expulsions of Palestinians. In al-Tira, a village adjacent to Ein Hod, the first attack occurred in December 1947. After the explosion, Yehya and his family gather. They are shocked, frightened, and angry but maintain their faith that Allah will protect them. Two weeks later, a nearby village, Balad-al-Shayk, is attacked, and dread grows among the villagers of Ein Hod. In May 1948, the residents of Ein Hod and two other villages, totaling over 20,000 people, resist and call for a truce. Filled with hope after its acceptance, they invite the Jewish soldiers to a feast and share their food “as a gesture of friendship and our intention to live side by side with them” (27). The following day, July 24, the three villages are bombed.

Dalia loses most of her sisters and her father in the attack, resulting in trauma. Yehya and his sons and grandchildren survive but are forced by the same Israeli soldiers who participated in the feast to walk with the other survivors to a well, where they are ordered to leave all their belongings, including their gold. Darweesh pleads to be allowed to keep his horse, Fatooma, the mate of Ganoosh, who has died in the attack. A soldier shoots Fatooma dead and Darweesh in the chest. He has paralysis for life.

Dalia is at the back of the crowd carrying six-month-old Ismael and searching for Hasan. In an instant, Ismael is gone. Dalia and Hasan desperately search for him, to no avail.

The villagers sleep on the ground and try to return to their villages for several days. Constantly driven back by the soldiers, they and refugees from other villages move toward Jenin, where the residents help them as best they can. A refugee camp grows in the town, with a few tents provided by Syria, Jordan, and Iraq.

Yehya reflects on the 40 generations of his ancestors who lived and died in Ein Hod. In 1948, Palestine and its children lose their homes and their homeland, and Israel is born.

The narrative moves back to the day the Israeli soldiers eat in the village. One soldier, Moshe, watches Dalia and Ishmael as he eats. He thinks about his wife, Jolanta, who was abused in Germany by the SS and sailed alone to Palestine after the war. There, she married Moshe, but they have been unable to have a baby.

The day after the meal, Moshe snatches Ismael and hides him until he gets home to Jolanta, who welcomes the baby and accepts him as their son, calling him David.

In the refugee camp in Jenin, the men gather every morning to hear the news as Hasan reads the newspaper. There is some hope for a return to their land when a UN mediator to the conflict is appointed. This hope is dashed again when the mediator is assassinated by Zionists.

Over the next few years, the tents are replaced by more permanent dwellings made from clay, and Yehya’s hope of return diminishes. He spends his days playing backgammon with Haj Salem and the UN director of operations in Jenin, Irishman Jack O’Malley. In November 1953, frustrated by this aimless existence and called by the olives, Yehya dresses up in his best traditional clothes, shaves, and returns on foot to Ein Hod.

Yehya returns 16 days later, triumphant at having escaped detection, carrying all the fruit and olives he can. He is greeted as a hero by the villagers, with whom he shares his bounty. The ensuing festivities enliven and inspire defiance in the villagers until normality and despondency return. Yehya sets out to Ein Hod again, but this time, he is shot and killed by Jewish soldiers for trespassing. The effect on his family and the refugees is sobering, as they realize “they [are] being slowly erased from the world, from its history and from its future” (48-49). They resolve not to live like “dogs” but to organize and dignify their camp. They build another mosque and schools, and Hasan puts all his effort into administering them while also working and saving for Yousef’s education. Meanwhile, the boy misses his grandfather, and Dalia misses her baby.

In July 1955, Dalia and Hasan have a baby girl, Amal, after Hasan gets a job as a janitor in the new UN-sponsored boys’ school. The new child and somewhat better conditions afforded by Hasan’s post bring Dalia out of her grief. As the girl grows, Dalia recognizes her former Bedouin spirit in Amal’s wild character. She finds it hard to discipline Amal but also to express her love for her, which she does mainly by stroking the sleeping girl’s hair.