For the Palestinians, the war in Gaza is a catastrophe like that of 1948

The war in Loop has plunged the Palestinians into a catastrophe, laments an inhabitant of this territory who fled the fighting and compares his situation with the massive displacement that occurred after the creation of the State of Israel 76 years ago, known as the “Nakba”.

“The Nakba that we experienced” this year in Gaza “is the worst of all, it is harsher than that of 1948,” he says Mohammed al-Farra, 42 years old, taken with his family by fighting and Israeli bombing from their home in Khan Younes, in the south of the Gaza Strip, towards the coastal area of ​​al Mawasi.

“Our lives were convulsed,” and “the destructions and displacements did not come just once like in 1948 but are repeated again and again in this new Nakba,” he added.

Between the vote at the UN that ratified the creation of a State of Israel in November 1947 and its official proclamation on May 14, 1948, A civil war pitted Arab and Jewish militias in Palestinian territory.

Some 760,000 Palestinians living in what would become the State of Israel were forced into exile and found refuge in the present-day West Bank and Gaza Strip, or in neighboring countries (Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt).

The war unleashed on October 7 by the bloody attacks carried out by Hamas against Israel forced, according to the UN, around 70% of the 2.4 million inhabitants of Gaza to leave their homes, attacked by the Israeli army in massive proportions. never seen until now.

Events that occurred in a narrow, overpopulated and besieged territory, now in ruins, which has forced a large part of the displaced to flee on several occasions from where they had found refuge, when they are once again trapped by the fighting.

Keys as a symbol

According to “those who lived through the Nakba” of 1948, “the bombings, destructions, displacements, deaths and annihilations of this war are unprecedented,” considers Ahmed al-Akhras, 50, who fled central Gaza to find refuge in Rafahwhich in turn is being bombed and where fighting is taking place.

Half a million people, some already displaced, fled a week ago from that corner of southern Gaza, next to the Egyptian border.

In 1948, “during the Nakba, the suffering was limited to being forced to leave,” he says, citing the experience of his family forced to flee Beersheba, now in southern Israel.

On Wednesday, in several cities in the occupied West Bank, thousands of people participated in commemorative marches organized each year on the day after the anniversary of the proclamation of the State of Israel, on May 14, 1948.

In RamallahHebron, Nablus, they brandished Palestinian flags, large keys that are a symbol of their lost homes and banners proclaiming their “right of return.”

This year “there is more pain for us and even more for those of Gaza, we live a second Nakba,” he told AFP Manal Sarhana 53-year-old housewife who participated in a demonstration in Ramallah.