Nakba Day In Our Classroom

That happened when I was a child student, my teacher asked me, “Where are you from?”, “from Gaza,” I replied. “That’s not true.” he said. I got angry with him. I told him the truth, so why did he say that?.

On that day, I told my mother about what happend. she tenderly pat my shoulder, saying, “Oh my little girl.. we are not from Gaza, we are from Hamamma village.” Of course, I did not understand what my mother meant!!.

As I grew up, I found out everything, and I realized what did my mother mean.. and for the first time I experienced that I was just a Palestinian refugee lives in Gaza temporarily. My family forcibly immigrated from Hamamma village by the Israeli occupation in 1948 .. That shocked me: The painful truth.

Then, I got over my self consciousness with my Palestinian identity, and with those burning questions like: Why can’t we live in our village? Why do those foreigners come to help us in Gaza? Why did Jews occupy our land, moreover, they deal with us in ways based on barbaric and inhumane thinkable ways?

Yesterday was the anniversary 67 of Nakba, May 15, the day became stuck with each Palestinian’s memory, and linked to the Right Of Return. Palestinians, at everywhere in the world, commemorated this tragic day. Even the schools and universities have revived the memory of the Palestinian Nakba. Here I thank the students at Tel Aviv University who commemorated the Nakba, although the Education Minister Gideon Saar opposed it, and suggested to the university president the Nakba Day celebration should be canceled.