{"id":19248,"date":"2025-05-17T03:33:56","date_gmt":"2025-05-17T03:33:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/?p=19248"},"modified":"2025-05-17T03:34:04","modified_gmt":"2025-05-17T03:34:04","slug":"in-gaza-the-nakba-is-being-relived-in-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/?p=19248","title":{"rendered":"In Gaza, the Nakba is being relived in 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ruwaida Amer\u2019s grandparents lived through the Nakba in 1948. Now, in 2025, she is experiencing another catastrophe.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Palestinians
Palestinians wait to receive food cooked by a charity kitchen, in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip, May 14, 2025 [Mahmoud Issa\/Reuters]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Nakba. It\u2019s a concept that accompanied me from birth until I lived through it myself these past two years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was born a refugee in the Khan Younis camp, known by the city\u2019s residents as the largest gathering of refugees expelled from their lands during the Nakba, when Israel was founded in 1948.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whenever someone asked me my name, it was always followed by: \u201cAre you a refugee or a citizen?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u2018What is a refugee?\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As a child, I would ask: \u201cWhat is a refugee?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I attended a school run by UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, and my documents always had to include proof that I was a refugee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I received treatment at UNRWA clinics, always needing to bring that refugee card.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I spent a lot of time trying to understand what being a refugee meant. How did my grandparents flee their land in Beit Daras, a village north of the Gaza Strip that no longer exists? How did my grandfather end up in this camp, and why did he choose this place?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Breaking News Alert<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

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Before Israel\u2019s war on Gaza, May 15, or Nakba Day, the day Palestinians commemorate the Nakba, was a unique occasion. Everyone paid attention to it, seeking out people who had lived through it to hear their stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I began working as a journalist in 2015, Nakba Day was one of the events I looked forward to covering. That year, I went along with colleagues to the Shati camp, west of Gaza City.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It would be my first time writing about the Nakba, and my first visit to a refugee camp in 13 years, since we had moved from camp life to village life in al-Fukhari, south of Khan Younis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I entered the camp, memories of my childhood in Khan Younis came flooding back: the small, crowded houses, some newly built, others still original structures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was nice that the commemoration falls in May, with good weather.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elderly men and women sat by their doors, just as my grandmother did when I was a child. I used to love sitting with her; she seemed used to open spaces, like her pre-1948 home in Beit Daras.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We sat with elderly women, all over 70. They talked about their homeland, the stability they had in their lands, their simple lives, the food they grew and ate, and the heartbreak of not being able to return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We met many \u2013 from Majdal, Hamama, and al-Jura, all depopulated villages and towns taken over by Israel in 1948. Whenever I met someone from Beit Daras, we\u2019d share memories, and laugh a lot, talking about the maftoul (Palestinian couscous) the town was famous for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The visit was light-hearted, filled with laughter and nostalgia, despite these people having been forced into camp life after the occupation drove them from their towns in horrific ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Ruwaida Amer (right) with a group of her students [Courtesy of Ruwaida Amer]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Displacement<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I began to understand those Nakba stories more deeply when my grandfather began to tell me his own story. He became the central character in my Nakba reports every year, until his death in 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He estimated he was about 15 years old at the time. He was already married to my grandmother, and they had a child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He would describe the scenes as I sat in awe, asking myself: How could the world have stood by silently?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My grandfather told me they had a good life, working their farm, eating from their crops. Each town had a specialty, and they exchanged produce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Theirs was a simple cuisine, with lots of lentils and bread made from wheat they ground in stone mills. Until that dreadful displacement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said the Zionist militias forced them to leave, ordering them to go to nearby Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My grandfather said he shut the door to his home, took my grandmother and their son \u2013 just a few months old \u2013 and started walking. Israeli planes hovered overhead, firing at people as if to drive them to move faster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The baby \u2013 my uncle \u2013 didn\u2019t survive the journey. My grandfather never wanted to go into the details, he would only say that their son died from the conditions as they fled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After hours of walking, they reached Khan Younis and, with nowhere else to go, he pitched a tent. Eventually, UNRWA was set up and gave him a home, the one I remember from my childhood. It was so old; I spent years visiting them in that asbestos-roofed house with its aged walls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That memory of being forced into exile became their wound. Yet, the idea of return, the right to go home, was passed down through generations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Ruwaida Amer became a journalist, allowing her to document the stories of Palestinians [Courtesy of Ruwaida Amer]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Memories made flesh, blood, and anguish<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Nakba was a memory passed down from the elderly to the young.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in the war that Israel began waging on Gaza on October 7, 2023, we lived the Nakba.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We were forcibly displaced under threat of weapons and air strikes. We saw our loved ones arrested before our eyes and tortured in prisons. We lived in tents and searched everywhere for basic provisions to save our children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My grandfather told me they fled under threat of weapons and planes \u2013 so did we.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said they searched for flour, food, and water while trying to protect their children \u2013 so are we, right now in the 21st century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps in 1948, the media was more primitive. But now, the world watches what\u2019s happening in Gaza in many formats \u2013 written, visual, and audio \u2013 and yet, nothing has changed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Never did I imagine I\u2019d live through an existential war \u2013 a war that threatens my very presence on my land, just as my grandparents lived through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The repeated scenes of displacement are so painful. They\u2019re a cycle, one that we have been cursed to live through as Palestinians again and again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Will history record this as Nakba 2023?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Years from now, will we speak of this Nakba just as we\u2019ve spoken about the original one for 77 years? Will we tell stories, hold commemorations, and hold close memories of the dream of return that has stayed with us since childhood?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since I realised what it meant to be called a refugee and learned I had a homeland, I\u2019ve been dreaming of returning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This pain, we can never forget it. I still remember the camp and my life there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ll never forget the moment Israel destroyed my house and made us homeless for two years, 24 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now we live our painful days searching for safety, fighting to survive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We will tell future generations about this war, the war of existence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We resist hunger, fear, thirst, and pain so we can remain on this land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Nakba hasn\u2019t ended. The 1948 Nakba continues in 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Reference Link:- https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/features\/2025\/5\/15\/gaza-nakba-relived-2025<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ruwaida Amer\u2019s grandparents lived through the Nakba in 1948. Now, in 2025, she is experiencing another catastrophe. The Nakba. It\u2019s a concept that accompanied me from birth until I lived through it myself these past two years. I was born a refugee in the Khan Younis camp, known by the city\u2019s residents as the largest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19249,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[18488,18489,893,1115,105,2569,18490,52,1636,1635,18485,18486,18487,51,999,18491],"class_list":["post-19248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sample-category","tag-catastrophe","tag-exapansionism","tag-gaza","tag-genocide","tag-geopolitics-2","tag-holocaust","tag-in-gaza","tag-israel","tag-israeli-agressions","tag-israeli-brutalities","tag-nakba","tag-nakba-in-1948","tag-nakba-in-2025","tag-palestine","tag-zionism","tag-the-nakba-is-being-relived-in-2025"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19248"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19250,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19248\/revisions\/19250"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}