Salman Abu Sitta

Salman Abu Sitta was born in 1937 into a Palestinian family. His family's land and the village bore their name, Ma'in Abu Sitta (the Abu Sitta springwell), in Beer Sheba District of Mandatory Palestine. One morning in April 1948, he and other schoolboys were sent home for safety reasons, after they were summoned by the headmaster and told that the Jews had occupied central Palestine. Abu Sitta made the 40 km journey from Beer Sheba town to his home on foot, and six weeks later the family was attacked by the Jewish militia before Israel was declared a country. They became refugees in the Gaza Strip.

Abu Sitta graduated from al-Saidiya secondary school in Cairo, Egypt, ranking first in Egypt. After graduating from Cairo University's Faculty of Engineering in 1958, Abu Sitta went to the United Kingdom to continue his post-graduate studies, receiving his PhD in Civil Engineering from the University of London, UCL.

He was a member of the Palestine National Council. He studied refugee affairs and authored over 400 papers on the subject. He directed international development and construction projects. He was the founder and President of the Palestine Land Society (PLS)[3] He was the General Coordinator of the Right of Return Congress.

Abu Sitta engaged in debates with Israelis who professed interest in peace without the return of the refugees, including Uri Avnery and Rabbi Michael Lerner.[4]

Abu Sitta spent 40 years digging for information related to Palestine before, during and after al Nakba, the destruction of Palestine. Abu Sitta's work ensured that "the memories and identity of the occupied homeland are never lost". He is regarded by Uri Avnery as perhaps 'the world's foremost expert on the Nakba'.[5] The documentation process began when he was 30 years old, when he stumbled on the memoirs of the Turkish chief of Beersheba,[6] when Palestine was under Ottoman rule. The document dated to the early twentieth century.

"It sort of started from there, and it has never stopped," Abu Sitta says. "I kept collecting all and any material on every inch of my homeland."

Abu Sitta's claimed to show that the return of the refugees to their homes is sacred to Palestinians, legal under international law and possible without major dislocation to the Jewish settlers in Palestine. His work also includes the compendium Atlas of Palestine 1917- 1966.[7]

• The Return Journey (2007) Palestine Land Society ISBN 0-9549034-1-2
• Abu-Sitta, Salman H. (2016). Mapping My Return: A Palestinian Memoir. Cairo, Egypt: The American University in Cairo Press. ISBN 978-977-416-730-0.
• Atlas of Palestine, 1917- 1966 Palestine Land Society (December 2010) ISBN 978-0-9549034-2-8
• The Palestinian Nakba 1948: The register of depopulated localities in Palestine (Occasional Return Centre studies) (1998 reprinted 2000) Palestinian Return Centre ISBN 1-901924-10-6

• Uri Davis: In Search of the Abu Sitta Sword
• Palestine Land Society