From 1948 to Now, a Palestinian Woman in Gaza Recounts a Life of Displacement 

Ghalia Abu Moteir, whose family fled what is now Israel during the 1948 war that surrounded its creation, shelters from the current war in a tent in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, after being displaced from her home in Rafah, Wednesday, May 14, 2025. (AP)
Ghalia Abu Moteir, whose family fled what is now Israel during the 1948 war that surrounded its creation, shelters from the current war in a tent in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, after being displaced from her home in Rafah, Wednesday, May 14, 2025. (AP)
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From 1948 to Now, a Palestinian Woman in Gaza Recounts a Life of Displacement 

Ghalia Abu Moteir, whose family fled what is now Israel during the 1948 war that surrounded its creation, shelters from the current war in a tent in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, after being displaced from her home in Rafah, Wednesday, May 14, 2025. (AP)
Ghalia Abu Moteir, whose family fled what is now Israel during the 1948 war that surrounded its creation, shelters from the current war in a tent in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, after being displaced from her home in Rafah, Wednesday, May 14, 2025. (AP)

As a 4-year-old, Ghalia Abu Moteir was driven to live in a tent in Khan Younis after her family fled their home in what’s now Israel, escaping advancing Israeli forces. Seventy-seven years later, she is now back in a tent under the bombardment of Israel’s campaign in Gaza.

On Thursday, Palestinians across the Middle East commemorated the anniversary of the “Nakba” -- Arabic for “the Catastrophe” -- when some 700,000 Palestinians were expelled by Israeli forces or fled their homes in what is now Israel before and during the 1948 war that surrounded its creation.

Abu Moteir’s life traces the arc of Palestinians’ exile and displacement from that war to the current one. Israel’s 19-month-old campaign has flattened much of Gaza, killed more than 53,000 people, driven almost the entire population of 2.3 million from their homes and threatens to push them into famine.

“Today we’re in a bigger Nakba than the Nakba that we saw before,” the 81-year-old Abu Moteir said, speaking outside the tent where she lives with her surviving sons and daughters and 45 grandchildren.

“Our whole life is terror, terror. Day and night, there’s missiles and warplanes overhead. We’re not living. If we were dead, it would be more merciful,” she said.

Palestinians fear that Israel’s ultimate goal is to drive them from the Gaza Strip completely. Israel says its campaign aims to destroy Hamas after its Oct. 7, 2023, attack in which gunmen killed some 1,200 people in southern Israel and abducted around 250 others.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that after Israel defeats Hamas, it will continue to control Gaza and will encourage Palestinians to leave “voluntarily.”

Ghalia Abu Moteir, whose family fled what is now Israel during the 1948 war that surrounded its creation, shelters from the current war in a tent in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, after being displaced from her home in Rafah, Wednesday, May 14, 2025. (AP)

From tent city to tent city

The Gaza Strip was born out of the Nakba. Some 200,000 of the 1948 refugees were driven into the small coastal area, and more than 70% of Gaza’s current population are their descendants. Gaza’s borders were set in an armistice between Israel and Egypt, which along with other Arab countries had attacked after Israel declared its independence.

Abu Moteir doesn’t remember much from her home village, Wad Hunayn, a small hamlet thick with citrus groves just southeast of Tel Aviv. Her parents fled with her and her three brothers as the nascent forces of Israel moved into the area, fighting local Palestinian groups and expelling some communities.

“We left only with the clothes we had on us, no ID, no nothing,” Abu Moteir said. She remembers walking along the Mediterranean coast amid gunfire. Her father, she said, put the children behind him, trying to protect them.

They walked 75 kilometers (45 miles) to Khan Younis, where they settled in a tent city that sprang up to house thousands of refugees. There, UNRWA, a new UN agency created to care for them – temporarily, it was thought at the time – provided food and supplies, while the Gaza Strip came under Egyptian rule.

After two years in a tent, her family moved further south to Rafah and built a home. Abu Moteir’s father died of illness in the early 1950s. When Israeli forces stormed through Gaza to invade Egypt’s Sinai in 1956, the family fled again, to central Gaza, before returning to Rafah. In the years after the 1967 Middle East War, when Israel occupied Gaza and the West Bank, Abu Moteir’s mother and brothers left for Jordan.

Abu Moteir, by that time married with children, stayed behind.

“I witnessed all the wars,” she said. “But not one is like this war.”

A year ago, her family fled Rafah as Israeli troops invaded the city. They now live in the sprawling tent city of Muwasi on the coast outside Khan Younis. An airstrike killed one of her sons, leaving behind three daughters, a son and his pregnant wife, who has since given birth. Three of Abu Moteir’s grandchildren have also been killed.

Throughout the war, UNRWA has led a massive aid effort by humanitarian groups to keep Palestinians alive. But for the past 10 weeks, Israel has barred all food, fuel, medicines and other supplies from entering Gaza, saying it aims to force Hamas to release 58 remaining hostages, fewer than half believed alive.

Israel also says Hamas has been siphoning off aid in large quantities, a claim the UN denies. Israel has banned UNRWA, saying it has been infiltrated by Hamas, which the agency denies.

Hunger and malnutrition in the territory have spiraled as food stocks run out.

“Here in Muwasi, there’s no food or water,” said Abu Moteir. “The planes strike us. Our children are thrown (dead) in front of us.”

Ghalia Abu Moteir, whose family fled what is now Israel during the 1948 war that surrounded its creation, shelters from the current war in a tent in Khan Younis, Gaza, after being displaced from her home in Rafah, Wednesday, May 14, 2025. (AP)

Devastation tests Palestinians' will to stay

Generations in Gaza since 1948 have been raised on the idea of “sumoud,” Arabic for “resilience,” the need to stand strong for their land and their right to return to their old homes inside Israel. Israel has refused to allow refugees back, saying a mass return would leave the country without a Jewish majority.

While most Palestinians say they don’t want to leave Gaza, the destruction wreaked by Israeli forces is shaking that resilience among some.

“I understand that ... There is no choice here. To stay alive, you’d have to leave Gaza,” said Amjad Shawa, director of the Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations Network in Gaza, though he said he would never leave.

He dismissed Netanyahu’s claims that any migration would be voluntary. “Israel made Gaza not suitable for living for decades ahead,” he said.

Noor Abu Mariam, a 21-year-old in Gaza City, grew up knowing the story of her grandparents, who were expelled by Israeli forces from their town outside the present-day Israeli city of Ashkelon in 1948.

Her family was forced to flee their home in Gaza City early in the war. They returned during a two-month ceasefire earlier this year. Their area is now under Israeli evacuation orders, and they fear they will be forced to move again.

Her family is thinking of leaving if the border opens, Abu Mariam said.

“I could be resilient if there were life necessities available like food and clean water and houses,” she said. “Starvation is what will force us to migrate.”

Kheloud al-Laham, a 23-year-old sheltering in Deir al-Balah, said she was “adamant” about staying.

“It’s the land of our fathers and our grandfathers for thousands of years,” she said. “It was invaded and occupied over the course of centuries, so is it reasonable to leave it that easily?”

“What do we return to?” Abu Moteir remembers the few times she was able to leave Gaza over the decades of Israeli occupation.

Once, she went on a group visit to Jerusalem. As their bus passed through Israel, the driver called out the names of the erased Palestinian towns they passed – Isdud, near what’s now the Israeli city of Ashdod; Majdal, now Ashkelon.

They passed not far from where Wadi Hunayn once stood. “But we didn’t get off the bus,” she said.

She knows Palestinians who worked in the Israeli town of Ness Ziona, which stands on what had been Wadi Hunayn. They told her nothing is left of the Palestinian town but one or two houses and a mosque, since converted to a synagogue.

She used to dream of returning to Wadi Hunayn. Now she just wants to go back to Rafah.

But most of Rafah has been leveled, including her family home, she said.

“What do we return to? To the rubble?”



Sweida’s Druze, Bedouin Tribes Locked in Historic Grievances

Druze woman from Israeli-Occupied Golan gazes toward Syria (Reuters)
Druze woman from Israeli-Occupied Golan gazes toward Syria (Reuters)
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Sweida’s Druze, Bedouin Tribes Locked in Historic Grievances

Druze woman from Israeli-Occupied Golan gazes toward Syria (Reuters)
Druze woman from Israeli-Occupied Golan gazes toward Syria (Reuters)

Sweida, a province in southern Syria, is teetering on the brink after days of deadly violence and clashes between local communities and government security forces, an unrest that signals deeper turmoil across the war-battered country.

The latest flare-up has laid bare tensions that go beyond the provincial borders, raising concerns about the future of coexistence and civil peace in a region long known for its rich tapestry of religious, social, and cultural diversity.

While the Syrian government in Damascus seeks to reassert control over all of its territory, local groups are renewing calls for greater recognition of their rights and “distinct identity.” The result is a fragile and combustible equation in a strategically vital region.

Sweida has long been a flashpoint, shaped by decades of uneasy relations between Druze communities and neighboring Bedouin tribes. That legacy of mistrust now intersects with a crumbling economy, a lack of essential services, the rise of armed factions, and a newly entrenched central authority in Damascus, factors that together threaten to turn the province into a flashpoint for wider instability.

Competing narratives have further muddied the waters, with each side offering starkly different versions of recent events, accounts that are often shaped not just by what happened in the past few days, but by long-standing grievances and buried animosities. The deepening rift and absence of trust among local communities highlight just how far Syria remains from reconciliation.

As pressure builds, observers warn that without a sustainable political solution that acknowledges local demands while maintaining national cohesion, Sweida may be a harbinger of further unrest in Syria’s uncertain future.

Power Struggles and Fractured Alliances

In Syria’s Sweida, power is fragmented among a complex web of religious authorities, influential families, and rival armed factions, a fractured landscape that reflects the broader divisions tearing at the country.

Local leadership is split between traditional Druze clerical authorities and prominent families, each with their own loyalties and varying degrees of influence on the ground. Political rivalries run deep, and military factions are equally divided, some aligning with the government in Damascus, while others openly challenge it.

Among the most prominent pro-government groups is the “Madafat al-Karama” faction led by Laith al-Balous, son of the late Druze leader Sheikh Wahid al-Balous. He is seen as a key ally of Damascus, alongside Suleiman Abdel-Baqi, commander of the “Ahrar Jabal al-Arab” group.

On the opposing side are factions such as the “Military Council in Sweida” and “Liwa al-Jabal” (Mountain Brigade), which collectively field around 3,000 fighters. These groups are seen as aligned with the views of influential Druze spiritual leader Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri, who has been increasingly critical of the central government.

A newer alliance has also emerged under the banner of “Counter-Terrorism Forces” or the “Syrian Brigade Party,” bringing together factions such as “Dir’ al-Tawhid,” “Forces of Al-Ulya,” “Sheikh al-Karama,” “Saraya al-Jabal,” and “Jaysh al-Muwahideen.” This coalition formally severed ties with Damascus following Sheikh Hijri’s speech on July 15, in which he rejected the government’s announcement of a ceasefire agreement with local notables.

Also active in the province is the “Men of Dignity Movement,” a relatively large faction led by Abu Hassan Yehya al-Hajjar. Though not officially aligned with the new coalition, the group is also staunchly opposed to the Syrian government.

The growing number of factions and rival power centers has deepened instability in Sweida.

Bedouin Tribes in Sweida Say They Are Marginalized, Blamed and Forgotten

Even after government forces withdrew and a fragile ceasefire took hold in Sweida, clashes reignited, this time between Druze residents and Bedouin tribes, underscoring the deep and historical grievances simmering beneath the surface of the country’s sectarian fault lines.

The Bedouin, who see themselves as long-marginalized stakeholders in the region, say they have been caught in the crossfire - blamed for violence they did not initiate and excluded from political life and public services.

“We are the perpetual scapegoats,” said Mohammad Abu Thulaith, a lawyer and member of the Sweida Tribal Council. A descendant of one of the Bedouin tribes long at odds with the Druze population, he told Asharq Al-Awsat that “Bedouins are the weakest link in the local power struggle.”

The sense of injustice voiced by Abu Thulaith runs deep and is rooted in historical narratives. According to his account, the Druze - who migrated to the Jabal al-Arab area around two centuries ago - gradually expanded their influence, curbing the pastoral livelihoods of the Bedouin, particularly livestock herding. This, he said, led to the forced migration of nearly half of the Bedouin tribes from the mountain region toward Jordan, rural Damascus, and Daraa.

He cited the example of Saad Hayel al-Surour, a former speaker of the Jordanian parliament, who remains a Syrian citizen to this day. His father, Hayel al-Surour, once headed the Syrian parliament before the 1958 union between Syria and Egypt.

Many in the Bedouin community consider themselves the original inhabitants of the land, victims of what they describe as “a prolonged injustice” that denied them citizenship rights, political representation, and even basic services.

Abu Thulaith argues that the source of current tensions must be addressed at its roots. “We are blamed because the other side does not dare confront the real actors behind the violence,” he said, referring to armed groups operating in the area.

He called on the Druze tribal leadership - often referred to as “the people of the mountain” - to assume responsibility for protecting the Bedouin community and ending decades of exclusion. “We’ve suffered from a double injustice,” he said. “One at the hands of the Assad regime and Baathist rule, and the other from our neighbors. We have no access to employment, no political representation, and we’re deprived of the most basic public services.”

Despite the mounting frustration, Abu Thulaith insists that the Bedouin do not seek confrontation. “We don’t have the means to fight,” he said. “All we want is to live in peace with our neighbors. No one can erase the other. Since the fall of the former regime, tribal communities have hoped the state would step in to offer protection and ensure the most basic rights.”

As tensions in Sweida continue to spiral, voices like Abu Thulaith’s are demanding a deeper national conversation about identity, land, and the future of Jabal al-Arab - one that addresses long-neglected wounds before they erupt into further conflict.

Druze Grapple with a Perpetual Identity Crisis

For Syria’s Druze minority, identity is not just a question of culture or belief, it is a matter of survival. That fear of erasure has long shaped their political instincts, social structures, and geographic presence in the country.

“The Druze, like many minorities, live with a constant sense of threat,” said Khaldoun Al-Nabbouani, a professor of political philosophy at the University of Paris and a native of Sweida. “This persistent anxiety drives them to close ranks around their identity in a collective effort of self-preservation.”

Speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat, Al-Nabbouani explained that the community’s inward turn is not only symbolic or cultural - it also manifests demographically. “Just as the Alawites are concentrated in the coastal mountains, the Druze have built their stronghold in Jabal al-Arab. It reflects a broader pattern among minorities to cluster in specific regions where they can reinforce their social cohesion and safeguard a perpetually anxious identity.”

That reflex dates back centuries. The very formation of the Druze sect, he said, was a political and cultural rebellion against traditional Islam. “Since its inception, the community has developed a deep need for internal solidarity and social insulation,” he said. “Even today, that’s visible in things like marriage practices - interfaith unions remain extremely rare.”

This insularity, he noted, extends to the political realm. The community has historically resisted the appointment of governors or officials from outside the Druze fold, a trend dating back to the 1930s and continuing into recent decades. One of the more controversial examples was the appointment of a non-Druze governor under the government of Ahmad Al-Sharaa, which sparked uproar, resignation, and a political standoff before the governor ultimately returned.

Tensions between the Druze and the central government are nothing new. Under President Adib Shishakli in the early 1950s, relations with Damascus deteriorated sharply. Shishakli accused the Druze of plotting against the state and in 1954 ordered artillery strikes on Jabal al-Arab, an assault that killed civilians, displaced families, and left deep scars that still echo in local memory.

When the Baath Party seized power in 1963, Damascus shifted tactics, pursuing what Al-Nabbouani described as a policy of “soft containment.” Symbolic appointments of Druze figures to government positions were coupled with tight security oversight in Sweida, a strategy aimed at managing rather than integrating the province.

As new waves of unrest ripple through southern Syria, the Druze community once again finds itself wrestling with existential questions caught between historical trauma, present instability, and an uncertain future.