GAZA CITY, 16 July 2003 — The mother of Mohamed Al-Khateb resolutely awaited the return of her son. She sat on an old blanket, placed permanently in a shaded spot adjacent to her house and waited, for decades.

We grew older, from childhood to manhood, and the tired old face of Mohamed’s mother always greeted us as we walked about our tiny, crowded refugee camp. I used to wonder if she ever moved or took a rest, even once. Later, I realized that she simply waited for her son, never losing hope that he would return one day.

Mohamed was in Kuwait. He left his refugee camp in Gaza following the 1956 war. He was still young then, and the Diaspora was still fresh in the minds of all refugees. There was no work in Gaza, so he chose to head to Kuwait, joining an influx of well-educated Palestinian youth that sought better lives in the Gulf states.

The young man never intended to stay in Kuwait for life. The plan was simple: Make enough money to support your family and return home. Mohamed returned twice or more to visit his family in the camp, once with a family of his own.

But as the longing for her son and grandchildren reached an intolerable stage, Mohamed’s mother was hit by the aftermath of the 1967 war: The Israeli Army occupied the Gaza Strip and the rest of the territories. The woman felt the bitterness of defeat and the cruelty of a new fate imposed on her. But there was more on her mind than the fall of her last safe haven. Mohamed, along with tens of thousands of Palestinians who were outside their towns, villages and refugee camps, were denied even their refugee status. They were permanently exiled.

The old woman was denied her greatest hope by military occupation, checkpoints, barbed wire and an Israeli government decision.

As I walked past the old lady’s house as she waited patiently for her son’s return, I did not understand that she, her son and the aging blanket were all players in one of the world’s most complicated political struggles. I did not guess that Mohamed’s mother represented a whole generation that longed for the return of their loved ones. I was too young to read much into the old woman. Did she hope that one day a taxicab would emerge, piled with luggage and carrying her son and grandchildren?

I doubt that the old woman followed the news intently. But I have no illusions that her heart leaped with joy every time she heard the word “peace” being uttered. While Palestinians and Israelis negotiated the complex steps required by the peace process, Mohamed’s mother must have measured the end result of the peace talks by the return of her son. Little did the old woman realize that the right of return for Palestinian refugees was the last “compromise” Israel was willing to make.

Although international law is clear on that right, it remained the red line that the Israeli government always refused to cross. Because Mohamed’s mother had little knowledge in Israel’s “demographic needs”, she never abandoned her spot on the old blanket near her house.

But the long wait has abruptly ended. On July 8, 2003, Mohamed Al-Khateb was killed in a car accident in Kuwait. His mother, now very old, received the news and for once abandoned her blanket outside. A neighbor in the camp called and told me that the old woman had lost consciousness and doctors expected that she too would soon die.

The chances are that Mohamed’s mother, now over 80 years old, will soon pass away. But while the death of Mohamed might have forced an old warrior to abandon her trench, millions of Palestinian refugees refuse to submit to an unjust fate that has separated them from Palestine for so long.

They remain steadfast in their trenches, in Lebanon, in Jordan, in Syria, in Iraq and all over the world, waiting the moment that international law will for once, prevail.

— Ramzy Baroud is the editor in chief of the Palestine Chronicle.