‘All the destruction Israel has created in Gaza is nothing, if we remain firm on our land’, says Nakba survivor

When I approached her and asked her to send a message to the world as an eyewitness to the Palestinian 1948 Nakba as well as the ongoing Nakba, I thought she would complain about the terrible conditions Palestinians in Gaza are living under and tell stories of suffering, but I found a heroine in the body of an old pale lady.

“My son,” she says, “we were subjected to the Nakba in 1948 and all the past years we had been moving away, far from the realisation of the dream of returning to our homes, but at the end, Al-Aqsa Flood came and turned everything upside down.”

“Do not think that our return to our homes would be free or would come through the resolutions of the international community? Those who believe in such heresy are naive.”

Aisha was forced out of the village of Hamama in 1948 by Zionist Jewish gangs. She was 12 years old. Her family moved to Jabalia in the north of Gaza.

Several days later, they heard news that the Zionists left their village so they returned to it but found Zionists still there. So they fled again and arrived in Gaza City.

The family moved from place to place until the end of the Zionist war which ended with the creation of the state of Israel backed by the US and other Western powers.

“At the end, we returned to Jabalia and lived in a refugee camp,” she says. “At the beginning, we lived in tents,” she said, adding: “We thought it would take some time to go back to our homes and villages, but thanks to the false promises of the Arab leaders and the UN, we have been waiting until today.”

Nakba survivor: ‘The current war on Gaza is crueller than the Nakba’

Between 1948 and 2024, Aisha lived through several wars and witnessed several revolutions. “Nothing was in our favour,” she explains. “Every war and every revolution has added new wounds to our deep wound and day by day, our dreams to return home have evaporated. However, we did not give up hope.”

Since the start of the ongoing livestreamed Israeli genocide in Gaza, Aisha and her family have been displaced from their home seven times. “We moved from place to place inside Jabalia during the previous ground incursions,” she says, adding: “We refused to leave our homes because we know that leaving them means not returning.”

The ongoing Israeli ground incursion, which has exceeded 60 days now, is different. “It is more brutal in terms of the intensity of attacks, the killing of people and destruction of homes and infrastructure,” Aisha says. “We refused all evacuation orders, but when they started attacking refugee shelters, hospitals and inhabited homes, we started thinking of moving out of Jabalia.”

“We remained at home until an Israeli military bulldozer reached the street leading to our house on the 43rd day of the incursion. Then, we were forced to move under fire. We could not carry clothes or food. We fled without anything and did not know where to go. We spent three days in the streets and then came here to this tent.”

It was raining when they arrived in Yarmouk Camp, now a shelter for Palestinians displaced from the northern Gaza cities of Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun. “It was very difficult to return to a tent after 76 years,” Aisha explains. “I had a very bad experience with the tent, but there are no other options.”

BLOG: The consequences of ignoring the 1947 Partition Plan and the 1948 Nakba

A day after she arrived in Yarmouk Camp, Aisha started suffering from low blood pressure. “I did not know what happened to me,” she says, adding: “Day after day, I turned from bad to worse until I fell unconscious. I was taken to hospital and was examined by doctors who told my sons that low blood pressure was the reason why.”

At 86 years old, Aisha needs special toilet facilities, a comfortable mattress to sleep on, and warm clothes to protect her during the winter months. None of which she has access to.

“We fled our homes carrying nothing,” she says. “We need almost everything, including warm clothes, covers and almost everything. There is nothing or very little of these things here.”

Highlighting the suffering inflicted by the “unprecedented” Israeli destruction and strikes, Aisha says she remains “optimistic” that she will return not to Jabalia, but to Hamama, from where she was forced out by Zionist gangs in 1948.

Do not be frightened by the scale of destruction inflicted by the brutal Israeli occupation forces. All of this is nothing if we remain here, and we will she says.

“People without roots or links to this land cannot remove people rooted in this land for thousands of years even if they faked history and deceived the whole world. These Zionists will disappear sooner or later. My son, today, we are closer to returning to our homes occupied in 1948 than ever before.”