{"id":16844,"date":"2023-11-14T10:28:18","date_gmt":"2023-11-14T15:28:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ohiopeacecouncil.org\/?p=16844"},"modified":"2023-11-14T10:28:18","modified_gmt":"2023-11-14T15:28:18","slug":"gaza-nakba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ohiopeacecouncil.org\/?p=16844","title":{"rendered":"Gaza Nakba"},"content":{"rendered":"
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People from Gaza City, some of them injured, are taking shelter in al-Nasser hospital, southern Gaza.Mohammed Talatene<\/span>DPA via ZUMA Press<\/span><\/small><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

My cousin Alaa was right.<\/p>\n

\u201cLeaving our home \u2013 and all the joyful memories in it \u2013 is one of the saddest experiences of my life,\u201d Alaa said.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s aggression toward Gaza involves both mass killing and expulsion.<\/p>\n

An uncle of mine recalled how he woke up one morning to see Israeli leaflets warning people that they must evacuate.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were defiant,\u201d my uncle said. \u201cWe refused to leave our homes. We said that we were not giving into the Israeli occupation. We decided that whatever our fate, we would stand firm. In any event, nowhere is safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

My uncle was right, too.<\/p>\n

Israel has callously attacked people who have done what they have been instructed \u2013 moved southwards.<\/p>\n

Israel has reduced homes to rubble all over Gaza, leaving dead bodies everywhere. Even ambulances trying to reach areas that have been bombarded have themselves come under Israeli fire.<\/p>\n

Alaa, my cousin\u2019s family left their home after an intense bombardment of the area where they live in Gaza City\u2019s Beach refugee camp.<\/p>\n

Although my uncle \u2013 Alaa\u2019s father \u2013 had initially sounded a defiant note, he felt compelled to evacuate given the intensity of Israel\u2019s bombardment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe witnessed another killing as we moved south,\u201d said Alaa. \u201cThe journey was exhausting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indelible mark<\/h2>\n

Israel displayed no regard for the elderly or people with disabilities.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy grandmother is unable to walk,\u201d Alaa said. \u201cSo we had to bring her wheelchair. When we approached a checkpoint manned by Israeli soldiers, we raised our arms, holding up white flags and our IDs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were afraid,\u201d Alaa added. \u201cWe knew about the reputation of the soldiers and how they had treated other evacuees. The Israeli soldiers have detained a lot of men and confiscated their belongings. Nobody knows what will happen to the men.\u201d<\/p>\n

Compared to many others, Alaa\u2019s family was \u201clucky.\u201d They were allowed through the checkpoint.<\/p>\n

But they still had a long journey before they reached the place where they took shelter.<\/p>\n

The forcible displacement in Gaza during October and November 2023 recalls the Nakba, the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine.<\/p>\n

The Nakba \u2013 Arabic for catastrophe \u2013 left an indelible mark on the Palestinian people, shaping their collective memory.<\/p>\n

For Palestinians, the Nakba is not relegated to the history books. It is an ongoing reality, intricately woven into the various facets of contemporary Palestinian life.<\/p>\n

Most people in Gaza are either survivors of the Nakba or their descendants. They are now being uprooted again.<\/p>\n

Gaza\u2019s story is one of intergenerational displacement. When elderly people try to navigate their way through the current crisis, the echoes of the Nakba resonate everywhere.<\/p>\n

The echoes can still be heard above the deafening sounds of Israel\u2019s explosions.<\/p>\n

Eman Alhaj Ali is a journalist and translator based in Gaza.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

People from Gaza City, some of them injured, are taking shelter in al-Nasser hospital, southern Gaza.Mohammed TalateneDPA via ZUMA Press My cousin Alaa was right. \u201cLeaving our home \u2013 and all the joyful memories in it \u2013 is one of the saddest experiences of my life,\u201d Alaa said. Israel\u2019s aggression toward Gaza involves both mass […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":16846,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[29,48,33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-east","category-news","category-palestine"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ohiopeacecouncil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ohiopeacecouncil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ohiopeacecouncil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ohiopeacecouncil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ohiopeacecouncil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16844"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ohiopeacecouncil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16844\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16847,"href":"https:\/\/ohiopeacecouncil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16844\/revisions\/16847"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ohiopeacecouncil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ohiopeacecouncil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ohiopeacecouncil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ohiopeacecouncil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}