My grandfather, Hamdi, was just eight when his family fled Bir al-Sabaa, a town in southern Palestine once known for its fertile land and agricultural life. His father, Abdelraouf, was a farmer who owned nearly 1,000 dunams of land and cultivated wheat, selling the harvest to merchants in Gaza. The family had a happy and comfortable life.
In October 1948, several months after European-Zionist forces had proclaimed the creation of Israel, Israeli troops attacked Bir al-Sabaa, forcing thousands of Palestinians, including my grandfather’s family, to flee under the threat of being massacred.
“We fled Bir al-Sabaa when the militias arrived,” my grandfather often told me. “My father thought it would only be temporary. We left our home, land and animals behind, thinking we’d return. But that never happened.”
Hamdi’s family fled on foot and by horse-drawn cart. What they thought would be a few weeks of displacement turned into permanent exile. Just like 700,000 other Palestinians, they were survivors of what we now call the Nakba.
Hamdi’s family found refuge in Gaza, where they stayed in temporary shelters and with extended family. Relatives helped them buy a small plot of land in the Tuffah neighbourhood of Gaza, just 70km (40 miles) from their home in Bir al-Sabaa, which the Israelis renamed Beersheba. Hamdi’s family struggled to rebuild their life.
Seventy-five years after my grandfather’s experience of painful........