Tony Tabita is a 73-year-old Palestinian living in England. Widowed, his two children visit him from time to time at his house in London.
Everyday, he can't help but think of his homeland Palestine, even though he became a British citizen some 40 years ago. Everyday, he hopes he will be able to take his children to see his birthplace and show them around his beloved Jerusalem.
Tabita moved to the UK in 1963. At age 13, he had become a refugee and moved to Jordan with his mother.
His first memories are of him as a child always playing with the neighbour's kids - both Arab and Jewish. "We had Jewish neighbours too. They were just friends; we played together as children and never thought of them as enemies until they started the bombing and the shooting. Then it became a different thing. Then we kept our distance"
He recalls his mother's fear in 1947 following a shooting at the Old Smith Club building, minutes away from his house in the Old City. A year later, he was forced to seek refuge in Jordan with his mother.
His sisters were sent to a convent in Jerusalem and his father, along with his uncles, were taken by the Jews to a concentration camp. For a year, no one knew where they were or what whether they were going to be released or not.
In 1948, his father was freed by the Red Cross. Looking gaunt and broken, his father was forced to start a new life in Jordan, having lost his wealth and business in Jerusalem.
Tabita's life in Jordan was nothing short of depressing. He lived off United Nations food rations and had to share accommodation with others during his father's disappearance.
He missed his chance of attending the American University of Beirut because he was only offered partial scholarship.
With his British residential papers, issued during Palestine's British mandate, Tabita travelled to Britain and upon finding a job decided to settle there.
In 1973, he visited occupied Jerusalem using his British passport and at the airport, he recalls being interrogated by Israeli authorities who asked him, "Why don't you speak Hebrew if you were born in Jerusalem?" It was too humiliating for him to want to go back.
Tabita went to his family home only to find it occupied by a Belgian vet. Upon standing outside, the doctor asked him what he wanted. In his words, the experience was "more than traumatic".
Tabita says, "How could I have tried to explain anything to him? It was my house and there was nothing I could do about it."
Like many Palestinians, Tabita's families left their house deeds behind and so couldn't even make a claim to any of their properties. They were now given away because of Israel's "absent" landlord law.
In retrospect, Tabita says he wishes he was older in 1948 to grasp how politics work. As a child, he didn't understand much. He felt betrayed by the international community.
Today, it hurts him that Palestine is a forgotten entity, especially in Western media. But he is adamant that injustice will come to an end, but probably not in his life time or his children's life time.
For him, it is ironic that the British, who started the problem, took him in and gave him a chance at a good life. 60 years later though, Tabita feels very much Palestinian at heart.
