From Nakba to genocide: A Gaza grandmother’s lifetime of loss and resilience

From Nakba to genocide: A Gaza grandmother’s lifetime of loss and resilience Submitted by Maha Hussaini on Fri, 05/15/2026 - 07:56 At 95, Fatema Obaid has survived two massive Israeli assaults, lost 70 family members and endured starvation and repeated forced flight - but still refuses to leave her homeland Fatema Obaid, 95, says the current genocide in Gaza is worse than the 1948 Nakba (Hani Abu Rezeq/MEE) Off At 95, Fatema Obaid has endured daily Israeli bombardment, starvation and the loss of 70 family members. Yet the Palestinian grandmother, who survived the 1948 Nakba , refused to leave Gaza City when ordered to do so by the Israeli military during the 2023 genocide.  For her, fleeing again would mark the beginning of a “crueller Nakba” - one she refuses to relive. “In the first Nakba, it is true that hundreds of thousands lost their land, homes and villages,” Obaid told Middle East Eye. “But in this Nakba, we have lost an entire history,” she said from an unfinished apartment in western Gaza City, where she is displaced alongside her grandchildren. “We lost entire families, and entire generations have been destroyed for decades to come. What they could not do in 1948, they are doing now.” Originally from Gaza City’s Shujaiya neighbourhood, Obaid was temporarily displaced during the 1948 Nakba, when Zionist militias attacked Palestinian towns and villages across historic Palestine, forcibly expelling hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to make way for the creation of Israel - an event many scholars describe as ethnic cleansing. Obaid later returned to Shujaiya, an area that remained outside Israeli control after the 1949 armistice agreement, but lay close to...

Original source: Middle East Eye