In our editorial meeting this week, we paused to ask ourselves: how do we mark the Nakba this year? After all, we have done this before. At Al-Ahram Weekly and Ahram Online, we’ve commemorated, documented, and remembered. Our archives are lined with essays by those whose names have long been etched into the Palestinian cause. Edward Said, Radwa Ashour, Abdel Wahab El-Messeri and others who wrote not only with clarity but with heartbreak. What more, we asked, can be said?
And then this article arrived.
Written by a 13-year-old, it reminded us, not with academic rigour nor journalistic detachment, but with piercing honesty, what the Nakba truly is: not an event to be remembered, but a wound that never closed. A memory that is not past. In the ruins of Gaza, in the tents of Rafah, in the defiance of a child who refuses to forget, the Nakba lives on.
There is no need for grand commentary or polished prose. This piece—raw and unflinching—says what must be said: that a new generation, born decades after 1948, carries the memory not as history, but as inheritance. It will not forget. It will not forgive. Not while the same crimes are televised live. Not while the same silence reigns.
So this, we felt, is how we remember the Nakba in 2025. By letting this voice be heard. Young, unbroken, and utterly clear-eyed.
Let the world take note: the story is not over.
Ahram Online
In the words of 105-year-old Nakba survivor Hakma Atallah: “Sometimes I close my eyes and try to remember my last night in Al-Swafeer. I imagine myself with my husband and children sitting in front of our home, drinking tea and chit-chatting. I wish I could go back to that day.”
What happens when people lose not just their homes, but their history?
On 15 May, Palestinians around the world mark the Nakba — Arabic for “catastrophe” — which began in 1948 when over 700,000 Palestinians were expelled from their land by Zionist militias during the creation of the state of Israel. Entire villages were razed.
Families were forced to flee under fire. What was once a homeland became a map of red lines, checkpoints, and military zones. This was not a tragic accident of war — it was a deliberate campaign of ethnic cleansing.
As someone who grew up hearing stories about Palestine — not just from my grandma, but at dinner tables, on the news, and in countless conversations — I don’t see the Nakba as a distant historical event.
It’s personal. It’s generational.
And for Palestinians, it never really ended.
In 1947, the United Nations voted to partition British-controlled Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states.
Violence broke out, and by May 1948, when Israel declared independence, war erupted between the new state and neighbouring Arab countries.
Amid the chaos, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced out of their homes.
Families fled on foot, donkeys, or in trucks — hoping to return in a few weeks. Most never did.
Over 400 Palestinian villages were depopulated or destroyed by the Israeli army.
Palestinians became refugees overnight, with many fleeing to Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Gaza. What was assumed to be a temporary exile became permanent.
I can’t help but imagine how it would feel to be told to leave my home, thinking I’ll return soon, only to find the door locked forever. I wonder how I would feel if my house, the streets I grew up on, and my village were wiped off the map overnight.
It’s a pain that I, and anyone who didn’t live through it, can’t fully understand. But we see something like it happening again — this time in Gaza — to people whose grandparents lived through it before them.
“We slept by the roadside at night and walked during the day. Progress was slow and painful. We were hungry and exhausted, both mentally and physically. Our only food was flatbread made on a woodfire,” said Fatima, a Nakba survivor.
Today, more than five million people are still registered as Palestinian refugees.
Many live in camps across the Arab world, in conditions their grandparents never expected to pass on when they were forced from their homes. It’s hard to understand how something so painful and historic can be passed down like a family heirloom.
As a person watching from afar, I can’t help but wonder: how can the world stay silent when this cycle keeps repeating?
This year, Nakba Day is not only about remembering the past — it’s also a reflection of the present. As Gaza lies in ruins and families once again sleep in tents, we’re not just looking back at the Nakba. We’re witnessing history repeat itself — this time broadcast in 4K for the whole world to see.
This year feels different. It hits harder and deeper.
While we remember the Nakba of 1948, we are also watching a second Nakba play out in real time.
And I can’t help but ask: how many times does a people — especially the Palestinian people — have to be ethnically cleansed before the world decides that enough is enough?
In Rafah, mothers hold their children with the same fear Hakma Atallah felt 77 years ago.
In Jenin, in Khan Younis, in the occupied West Bank, people are being forced from their homes for the same reasons their grandparents were.
Unlike in 1948, the world cannot claim ignorance. That is no longer a valid excuse.
The Nakba isn’t just being commemorated — it’s being continued. By the same oppressors. Against the same victims.
There are places where even saying the word “Palestine” is enough to be shut down. Where showing solidarity is treated as a disruption. Where silence is enforced in the name of “neutrality.”
But I don’t think there’s anything neutral about ignoring oppression. It’s just a quieter way of picking a side.
A simple tribute—that’s all it is meant to be.
But it is always rejected, in schools and universities, not only in the US or European countries that think they are not on the line of fire, and thus safe, but also in many schools in Egypt and the Arab world too.
It is being rejected not for what it says, but for who it stands with.
That kind of silencing says more than any official statement ever could.
And that is exactly why we need to keep speaking out—and defying the people trying to shut us down.
In a world that moves fast and forgets quickly, we must stop and honour those affected by the Nakba. It’s more than a history lesson — it’s an act of humanity.
We owe it to those who were forced to leave their homes to say, "We see you, we remember you, and we are listening."
But remembering is no longer enough — not when bombs are falling, not when children are buried under rubble, not when history is repeating itself in front of our eyes.
This Nakba Day, I’m not just mourning.
I’m demanding better.
We all should do better.
*Magdi El-Bittar is a 13-year-old Egyptian student based in Cairo. This is his first contribution to Ahram Online.
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