Gaza Strip – Last month, 89-year-old Ibtihaj Daula marked the 75th anniversary of the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing that led to the near-total destruction of Palestinian society. This month, her grandson Ali finishes 16 years of living under blockade in Gaza, which many Palestinians consider a new kind of Nakba.
Daula, known as Um Khattab, talks constantly about her memories before the Nakba (“catastrophe” in Arabic) and her life in the city of Jaffa before she and her family were expelled to Gaza in 1948. She now lives in the al-Shati refugee camp in the western Gaza Strip. She is a mother of nine and has 80 grandchildren of different ages.
