Lydda Airport

Overview

Named after a facility built in the British Mandate of Palestine in 1930, Lydda Airport centres on the story of Hannibal, one of eight planes belonging to Imperial Airways that went missing in 1940 over the Gulf of Oman. The absence is doubled, the ellipsis compounded. Jacir tells the parallel tale of Edmond Tamari, the transport company employee from Jaffa who, it is said, was told to take a bouquet of flowers to Lydda Airport and wait for Amelia Earhart to arrive so that he may welcome her to Palestine. The arrival never happened. Closure forever deferred.