Injured Palestinians are carried to ambulances after an Israeli attack on a clinic and a mosque in Jabalia camp in Gaza City, Gaza on May 15, 2025 [Ramez Habboub/Anadolu via Getty]
As Palestinians mark the 77th anniversary of the Nakba (“Catastrophe”) of 1948, those enduring Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza say what is happening today exceeds the horrors of the mass expulsions which accompanied the founding of the Israeli state in 1948.
Descendants of Nakba refugees in Gaza have long kept hold of the keys of their grandparents’ homes passed down the generations.
They have also suffered life in impoverished refugee camps, and endured the punishing blockade imposed by Israel since 2007, as well as multiple assaults by Israel.
Today however, the brutal war unleashed by Israel on the Strip has seen mass forced displacement once again inflicted on the Palestinians of Gaza.
This time however, they say the situation is even worse.
Nahfouz Mahmoud Naji, 65, describes the current situation in Gaza as “even harsher than what they lived through” – in reference to her grandparents and parents who experienced the 1948 Nakba.
“The war didn’t last this long. We’ve been in this situation for 19 months. We experience death and killing constantly. Living in tents is suffering from start to finish. We have to search for drinking water and food. Sometimes the charity kitchens are closed. We never feel full and there is no flour”.
Naji’s family were expelled from Al-Sawafir village in 1948, and she remembers her grandfather telling her stories about the day Zionist militias attacked.
“They were expelled and couldn’t take their money, clothes, or valuables like gold. They thought it would be temporary — just like we’ve thought for the past nineteen months,” she says.
She has lost her husband and two of her sons as a result of the current war, and a third son was killed in 2006.
Hajja Sara Mutlaq Abu Obaida, 85, was eight during the 1948 Nakba.
“I was displaced from the town of Hamama. That day, I fled with my mother, father, and siblings — we were running from death. I was very young. I may not remember many details, but I’ll never forget the night we slept under a tree to hide from the Zionist militias after night fell. We stayed there until morning and then carried on walking […] until we reached Gaza.”
With the start of the current war, Abu Obaida relived the pain once again. She says: “The occupation bombed our neighbour’s house. I was injured and taken to hospital”.
After that she and her family went to a shelter near Al-Shifa Hospital, but were forced to flee again when it was attacked.
She remembers walking until exhaustion overcame her, and says her “slow heavy steps” during this displacement reminded her of the contrast with the little girl she once was, running behind her parents during the Nakba.
After being given a wheelchair by a man who took pity on her, her grandchild pushed her the rest of the way to the southern border near Egypt.
There she lives in a tent, similar to the one she lived in after arriving in Gaza during the Nakba, she says, adding that the tent stands as a witness of a lifetime of displacement.
Even though she has grown old, she says, her “heart still aches for Hamama, and burns against the oppressor”.
This is an edited and abridged translation from our Arabic edition
