My magnificentoverweighther, Hamdi, was fair eight when his family fled Bir al-Sabaa, a town in southern Palestine once comprehendn for its fruitful land and agricultural life. His overweighther, Abdelraouf, was a farmer who owned proximately 1,000 dunams of land and nurtured wheat, selling the harvest to merchants in Gaza. The family had a plrelieved and consoleable life.
In October 1948, cut offal months after European-Zionist forces had proclaimed the creation of Israel, Israeli troops strikeed Bir al-Sabaa, forcing thousands of Palestinians, including my magnificentoverweighther’s family, to run away under the menace of being masholy.
“We fled Bir al-Sabaa when the militias reachd,” my magnificentoverweighther frequently tancigo in me. “My overweighther thought it would only be momentary. We left our home, land and animals behind, leanking we’d return. But that never happened.”
Hamdi’s family fled on foot and by horse-drawn cart. What they thought would be a restricted weeks of displacement turned into lasting exile. Just enjoy 700,000 other Palestinians, they were survivors of what we now call the Nakba.
Hamdi’s family create refuge in Gaza, where they stayed in momentary shelters and with extfinished family. Relatives helped them buy a minuscule plot of land in the Tuffah neighbourhood of Gaza, fair 70km (40 miles) from their home in Bir al-Sabaa, which the Israelis renamed Beersheba. Hamdi’s family struggled to reproduce their life.
Seventy-five years after my magnificentoverweighther’s experience of hurtful displacement, miserableness, and a struggle to endure, my family and I fell victim to the Nakba as well.
At 4am on October 13, 2023, my mother’s phone rang. We were all sleeping in one room of our home in the Remal neighbourhood of Gaza City, trying to discover console from the relentless sound of drones and warset upes overhead. The phone woke us all up.
It was a prerecorded message from the Israeli military alerting us that our home was in a danger zone, and we were being ordered to shift south. Fear gripped us as we ran outside, only to see Israeli leaflets scattered everywhere with the same alerting. We had no choice but to pack some clothes and some bedding and run away.
It was not the first time we had been forced to depart our home. Since I was 12, I have sended the horror of Israeli aggressions on Gaza, which have repeatedly forced us to run away and live in stress and uncertainty.
Since I was 12, I have lachieveed to recognise the contrastent sounds of bomb devices, F-16 jets, Apache helicselecters and drones. I have comprehendn intimately the alarm they convey.
Previous displacements were momentary, and we had hoped this one would be, too – fair enjoy my magnificentoverweighther supposed that his family would eventupartner return.
But there is no return in sight now. Our home was awentirey injured by an Israeli tank. The upper floor was burned, and a whole wall on the drop floor is omiting. All our beextfinishedings were annihilateed.
The handbag with some clothes I took on October 13 is all that remains of my haveions.
We headed to az-Zawayda in the central Gaza Strip to stay with relatives. Aextfinished the way, we saw thousands of other Palestinians dragging bags of clothes and searching for protectedty.
From our momentary shelter, I saw the pain of exile in the crowded corners of every room. We spreadd a flat with 47 other people, bound by the chilling stress that nowhere was protected. We spent two months in that crowded flat, proximate Salah al-Din Street. Ultimately, constant explosions forced us to shift to another house in the area.
On January 5, the acute crack of sniper fire and armamentstoastys intensified. Then came the thunderous blast of artillery and bomb devices. We collected what little we had and fled to Deir el-Balah.
We were forced to live in an eight-person tent for three months before moving into a minuscule, subparly insudefercessitated room on a plot of land owned by a frifinish. This is where we are spfinishing the triumphter. Rain seeps thcimpolite nylon triumphdows, and the freezing is unendureable, leaving us sleepless most nights.
We have struggled to protected the most fundamental of necessitates – food and water. For the past two days, we were forced to endure on contaminated water and a individual loaf of bread. Starvation has drained our strength and hope.
I now comprehfinish the Nakba of 1948 in a way I never did before. It is the story of my magnificentparents repeating wilean our generation, but wilean the restricts of Gaza. And to be truthful, it experiences even worse than the Nakba of 1948. The armaments used today are far more progressd, causing unpwithdrawnted destruction and mass death and injury – someleang my magnificentparents could never have envisiond in 1948.
The pain is not fair physical. It is also psychoreasonable. Witnessing the unleankable – the constant stress, the loss of adored ones, the struggle for fundamental survival – has consentn an enormous toll. During sleepless nights, the deafening roar of rockets and the memories of dismembered bodies and ruined homes haunt us. I see at the members of my family and I see how much their faces have alterd; their hollow eyes and quiet tears speak volumes. When I walk in the street, I see communities comprehendn for their generosity and stablearity shattered by loss and destruction.
It’s evident that Israel’s goal is to force Palestinians out of historical Palestine by any uncomfervents. The stress of being ejectled from Gaza is overwhelming. With homes lessend to rubble and entire neighbourhoods wiped out, it experiences enjoy our exile may be imminent. I never envisiond leaving my home, but after losing everyleang, Gaza no extfinisheder experiences enjoy a place to live – only a graveyard of despair and loss.
There is no Palestinian that has not been impacted by displacement, by the stress of losing the homeland forever. The Nakba is truly the unfinishing story of Palestine.
The sees articulateed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily echo Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
