Geostrategic Media Political Commentary, Analysis, Security, Defense
By Eng. Saleem Al-Batayneh
Some stories do not begin with a headline.
They begin with a passing sentence, a name mentioned almost casually, and a question that refuses to leave your mind.
Like many Jordanians, I begin my mornings by moving between local news websites, catching up on the latest developments at home. One morning, while browsing Ammon News, I came across a video of a traditional Jordanian jahah—a delegation seeking a bride—led by former Interior Minister Qaftan Al-Majali. The delegation was representing the Al-Nsair and Al-Mohsen families, with former MP Khalil Atiyeh acting on their behalf.
What caught my attention was not the occasion itself, but the way Al-Majali spoke about history.
He has a particular gift for bringing the past back to life through names, places, families and stories. On this occasion, he spoke about the relationship between Jordanians and Palestinians—a relationship he described as a heritage too deep to contain and too vast to be captured in writing.
It is, he argued, a relationship forged by a shared history and a shared destiny, one that has repeatedly crossed geography and political boundaries. Families, tribes and communities on both sides of the Jordan River have been connected for generations. And that relationship has also been marked by the blood of those who died on Palestinian soil.
Al-Majali ended his remarks with an important observation: the sacrifices of the soldiers of the Jordanian Arab Army who fell in Palestine should be documented, so that their memory remains alive for future generations of both Jordanians and Palestinians.
But one detail stayed with me.
He mentioned a Palestinian woman in Nablus who had spent 56 years caring for the remains of Jordanian soldiers buried near her home.
Her name was Amna Waked, known affectionately as Umm Jamal.
I wanted to know who she was.
So I contacted Al-Majali and asked him about her.
His answer was simple: if you want to understand her story, speak to the military historian Professor Dr. Bakr Khazer Al-Majali.
I did.
And what followed was a story that deserves to be remembered.
The Day Two Jordanian Soldiers Fell in Nablus
On June 7, 1967, fighting was raging between the Jordanian Arab Army and Israeli forces around Nablus, particularly in the Wadi Al-Tuffah area near the southern entrance to the city and close to Ein Beit El-Ma refugee camp.
Israeli aircraft struck a Jordanian military vehicle near the home of Amna Waked.
Inside the vehicle were two Jordanian soldiers:
Abdel Karim Jadaan Al-Azzam
and
Abdel Jalil Al-Alwan Al-Abbadi.
When Amna heard the explosion, she rushed outside.
She found the two soldiers severely wounded and tried to pull them away from the scene and help them. But their injuries were fatal. They died there, on Palestinian soil.
Amna was only 25 years old.
She could have walked away.
Instead, she did something that would bind her life to theirs for the next half-century.
She buried them.
She also kept their personal belongings and preserved the means by which their identities could be established. Their names, according to the account, were identified through the small metal identification discs hanging around their necks.
There was no ceremony.
No military honor guard.
No official record being created in that moment.
There was simply a young Palestinian woman who decided that two Jordanian soldiers who had died fighting on Palestinian soil would not be left without graves, names or someone to remember them.
And so began a remarkable act of loyalty that lasted for more than five decades.
A Promise That Outlived a War
Years passed.
The war became history. Children grew up. Political circumstances changed. The landscape around Nablus changed.
But Amna remained.
She continued to care for the two graves, protecting them from neglect and the passage of time. She feared that if she did not look after them, the graves might be damaged and the identity of the two soldiers could eventually be lost.
For decades, she carried an obligation that no government had formally assigned to her.
It was simply an obligation she had chosen for herself.
More than 30 years later, the family of one of the soldiers, Abdel Karim Al-Azzam, finally managed to locate his grave. His son, Fawaz Al-Azzam, worked through the relevant authorities and eventually travelled to Nablus.
He met Umm Jamal.
He came with the understandable intention of bringing his father’s remains home to Jordan.
But he encountered something he had not expected.
Umm Jamal refused.
Her position was firm: the two men had died defending Palestinian land, and, in her view, Palestinian soil was where they belonged.
Then she revealed another deeply personal secret.
One of her own sons had died and had been buried alongside the Jordanian soldiers as an act of respect and honor.
The encounter reportedly moved Fawaz deeply. Rather than insisting on removing his father’s remains, he accepted Umm Jamal’s reasoning. He is said to have kissed her hand and head before returning home, reassured that his father’s grave was in the care of someone he trusted.
A stranger had become the guardian of his father’s final resting place.
The Soldier’s Family Was Not the Only One Who Remembered
According to the account, the Jordanian field medical unit stationed in Nablus continued, under royal direction, to provide Umm Jamal with medical and basic living assistance. Members of the unit also visited her periodically to check on her welfare.
It was a quiet relationship.
There were no grand speeches.
No television cameras.
No political ceremony.
Just an elderly Palestinian woman in Nablus and the Jordanian soldiers who came to make sure that the woman who had spent much of her life looking after their fallen comrades was herself being looked after.
That, perhaps, is the most powerful part of the story.
More Than Two Graves
The story of Amna Waked is ultimately not only about two graves.
It is about memory.
Wars are usually remembered through military maps, casualty figures, commanders and political decisions. But beneath all of that are ordinary people who live with the consequences long after the guns fall silent.
There are mothers who wait.
Children who search.
Families who want to know where their fathers died.
And there are people like Umm Jamal, who sometimes preserve a piece of that history simply because they believe it is the right thing to do.
Her story also reflects a much larger history between Jordan and Palestine—one shaped not only by politics, but by families, tribes, marriages, friendships, shared communities and, tragically, shared sacrifice.
The Jordanian soldiers who fought and died in Palestine were not fighting on some distant battlefield disconnected from the lives of the people around them. They were part of a history in which the two societies were—and remain—deeply intertwined.
That is why stories such as Umm Jamal’s matter.
They humanize history.
They give names to the dead.
And they remind younger generations that relationships between peoples are not created only through treaties and political agreements. Sometimes they are built through acts of courage and loyalty that never make the history books.
A Place in Jordan’s Memory
Amna Waked died in early 2026.
She left behind no military rank and, as far as this story is concerned, no official title.
Yet for decades she carried an extraordinary responsibility: she was entrusted with the remains of Jordanian soldiers who had fallen on Palestinian soil.
That story deserves to be documented carefully and preserved—not only as part of the history of the Jordanian Arab Army, but as part of the shared human history of Jordanians and Palestinians.
It should be researched, recorded and taught alongside the broader history of the 1967 war and the sacrifices made by Jordanian soldiers in Palestine.
Not because history should be used to reopen old wounds, but because societies lose something important when they allow the names of those who carried its burdens to disappear.
And perhaps Jordan can do something more tangible.
A street in Amman could carry her name:
Amna Waked Street — Umm Jamal.
It would be a small gesture for a woman whose act of remembrance lasted more than half a century.
She was Palestinian.
The soldiers were Jordanian.
The graves were in Nablus.
But the story belongs to both peoples.
On June 7, 1967, two Jordanian soldiers died on Palestinian soil.
For the next 56 years, a Palestinian woman refused to let them become forgotten.
That is more than a story about war.
It is a story about what happens when memory becomes a responsibility—and when one person’s humanity outlives the conflict that first brought strangers together.
May God rest the souls of Abdel Karim Jadaan Al-Azzam and Abdel Jalil Al-Alwan Al-Abbadi, and may the memory of Amna Waked, Umm Jamal, endure as a testament to the human bond between Jordan and Palestine.
Author’s Bio:
Eng. Saleem Al Batayneh is a former member of the Jordanian Parliament.
