Stork Tower

High in the walls of Jerusalem, the Juhayr Tower, with its presence, beauty, history and meanings, is the Al-Luqluq Tower. This tower is a national feature, and an eternal heritage that concerns all the Palestinian people, young and old, living and dead, because it is a Palestinian narrative that has been circulated by tongues and is still, consisting of stories that began to be renewed in every A year, when spring arrives with its dewy green, lavish colours, desirable warmth, and charming flowers, spring is the season for the arrival of storks to our dear Palestinian country, which seeks warmth, tranquillity, and safety, and the anthems and songs of our children in the Palestinian villages and cities welcome these pet birds, who have an amazing presence. They are adornments for fields, prairies, hawks, and rooftops, and they are birds that have the courage that makes them break into homes with meekness and kindness, as if they wanted to belong to them, were it not for the external noise and the snooping guard dogs.

In this high tower, which the people of Jerusalem called: the stork tower, the storks built their nests in its openings, in its light nooks, on top of its stone shelves, and inside the cavities of its stalactites.

The height of the tower above the high walls was not also the reason for the reassurance of these birds, which, with their dense gathering around it, constituted awe of the presence and voices and fluttered with their long, picturesque wings, the reverence of its inhabitants only birds, but it was also awe of the magnificence of Jerusalem, and the church bells emitting the reassurance of the storks that did not She knows fear, caution, or fear of the residents, and she saw them bringing food baskets and throwing them under the base of the tower next to the Jerusalem walls, so the storks descend to them, picking from them whatever they want, to take them back to the nests of their little chicks.

Years and years, and this high tower is the village of storks that come to it every year, and every spring, and multiply in Jerusalem, so its births become sacred by lineage, and it and its chicks live in the shade of warmth, knowing neither fear, nor fear, nor loss; Because the people considered them blessed birds, and they came and took refuge in the walls of Jerusalem and its towers, and they equated them, in value and sanctity, with pigeons that flock to mosques, churches and homes because tranquillity enveloped them, and they became part of it and the behaviour of its people.

Now, for more than seventy years, storks no longer come to the walls of Jerusalem, and are no longer seen engineering their splendid flights over the Great Stork Tower, and their nests are no longer built in the tower’s (talaqs) or in its openings, or within its wide muqarnas, or on its shelves. The pink stone, and these wonderfully coloured birds no longer form a village for birds special to the tower and the walls, and the food baskets that were carried by young and old no longer empty their contents under the tower and near the walls of Jerusalem, and no longer one of the residents of Jerusalem and its villages awaits the return of the storks with each spring, Because the smell of gunpowder filled the air, and because the sounds of hovering planes, running cars, and screeching jeeps frightened distorted the purity of space and its aunt, so no longer were the mosques’ magnificence and church bells heard with serenity, reverence and longing.. to spread peace in the place.

Storks, birds of spring, birds of peace, birds of surprise and decorations.. which used to build their charming village on top of its tower, on the walls of Jerusalem.. They no longer come because of the smells of gunpowder, and because of strangers spreading fear, panic and anxiety in the place, but they will come with the coming spring when there are no smells For gunpowder, and there are no strangers, joy will come on the palm of the air of longing, rumbling towards its tower, which is still called the Burj Al-Luqluq.