Palestinians in Gaza mark anniversary of 1948 mass expulsion and say today’s catastrophe is worse

Ne'man Abu Jarad and his daughter push a cart loaded with jerrycans filled with water as they walk at a tent camp for displaced Palestinians in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Wednesday, May 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana) 2026-05-15T05:06:54Z DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Blink and you might miss the few stone walls that are all that’s left of the village that Yusuf Abu Hamam’s family was forced to flee when he was an infant in 1948. The village, al-Joura, was demolished by the Israeli military at the time. It has since vanished under neighborhoods of the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon and the grounds of a national park. The neighborhood where Abu Hamam’s family ended up — and where he spent most of his life — now lies also largely in ruins. Buildings in the Shati Camp in the northern Gaza Strip have been razed and wrecked by Israeli bombardment and demolitions during the past 2½ years of war . On Friday, Abu Hamam and millions of Palestinians mark the 78th anniversary of the Nakba, Arabic for “catastrophe,” referring to the mass expulsion and flight of some 750,000 Palestinians from what is now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation. It’s the third commemoration of the Nakba since the war in Gaza began. The 78-year-old Abu Hamam, one of a dwindling number of Nakba survivors, says the current war is an even greater catastrophe. More than six months after an October ceasefire, he and the rest of Gaza’s more than 2 million people are now crammed into less than half of the 25-mile-long strip along the Mediterranean coast, surrounded by an Israeli-controlled zone encompassing the rest of the territory. “There is no country left,” Abu Hamam said, speaking next to his home, which was heavily damaged by Israeli shelling earlier in the war. “A square kilometer and a half extending from the sea, this is what we are living in … It’s indescribable, unbearable.” (