Before 1948, before the establishment of Israel and the wars that followed, Mustafa Abu Awad’s family owned land and an orchard in the village of Sabbarin, in the Haifa district of what was then northern Palestine.
Now 89, he still clings to the remnants of that life – the faded photographs, fragile documents, and crumbling memories refuse to leave him.
For decades, he lived in the Nur Shams refugee camp on the outskirts of Tulkarm in the northern West Bank, always believing he would one day return to Sabbarin.
But today, his belief and hope are threatened by a second displacement that he has to endure.
Following Israel’s latest campaign, which began in the West Bank’s Jenin refugee camp in January and quickly expanded to include Nur Shams and the Tulkarm camp, more than 40,000 Palestinians have been driven from their homes, marking the most significant wave of displacement in the territory in over half a century, according to figures cited by both the United Nations and Israeli authorities.
“I lost everything,” he told The New Arab. “My house in the al-Manshiya neighbourhood is gone. Burned. I didn’t even have time to take anything with me.”
When the military entered the camp, he said, residents were forced to flee.
“I left with nothing but the clothes on my back. Everything, my photos, my papers, my life, was inside that house. It burned before my eyes, and there was nothing I could do.”
He struggled to contain his tears as he stood on a hill overlooking the road, watching bulldozers level the remnants of his former home.
To him, the destruction represented more than just the loss of a structure; it was the erasure of memories, of lives once rooted in that place.
For years, the camp was a stopover, a place to wait until it was safe to return to Sabbarin.
“We always said the camp was temporary,” he said. “Now I wish we could just go back to the camp. At least there, we were among our people.”
The first displacement
In 1948, Mustafa and his family fled Sabbarin on May 12. He was just 12 years old. He remembers the village as a “paradise,” up until they were driven from it.
They left with barely anything, panic mounting as word of nearby massacres filtered in and the sense of encroaching danger became impossible to ignore.
The family made it to the outskirts of Jenin, but within weeks, they attempted to return. By then, the area had been declared a military zone.
Eighteen young men who tried to make their way back were killed. They fled once again. That, he would later reflect, was the moment their life in exile truly began.
Palestinians refer to May 15, 1948, as the Nakba, or catastrophe in English, the day Israel was established on lands from which around 750,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled.
Each year, Palestinians mark the anniversary with rallies and processions asserting their right to return and rejecting any compromise or resettlement outside their ancestral lands.
Today, millions of Palestinian refugees live in camps across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, as well as in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan.
In 1951, the Lutheran World Federation, a global relief agency, established temporary housing in the Jenin plain for Palestinians displaced three years earlier during the Nakba. Among those who sought refuge was Mustafa's family, who soon moved to the Nur Shams refugee camp near Tulkarm.
Mustafa built a life for himself in Nur Shams. Though humble, the house became a sanctuary. He planted a small garden oasis, where “every corner bloomed with flowers and green.”
Despite the sense of stability he found at the camp, he continued to urge his grandchildren never to forget Sabbarin, asking them to hold tightly to the right of return and never let it go. He recalls visiting Sabbarin in the early 1970s, where he found his family’s vineyard turned into settler farms.
On the anniversary of the Nakba, he reflects on what the term means today. He never imagined this would be his fate. He thought back to the time when they had been killed and uprooted, and now, it was happening all over again, with no intervention from the world.
"My family lived in a house surrounded by olive trees, wheat fields, and four camels," he said. "We had springs in the village, water flowing freely. Now, we had a small home in a refugee camp, and even that is gone."
He has witnessed much suffering since the Nakba – the 1967 war, repeated invasions of the camp – but the latest displacement in 2025 was “the most painful of all.”
“What hurts most,” he said quietly, “is losing the neighbours. I don’t know where they are anymore. Some are in nearby towns, some further away, some... I hear they died. I couldn’t even say goodbye.”
A new Nakba
Standing on a hill overlooking the ruins of Nur Shams camp, Ibrahim al-Nimr, another displaced resident, recounted how his family fled.
“We were forced out. Now we live without stability. We used to be called refugees — now we’re the displaced. Between those two words is a life full of pain and memory,” he said.
“We grew up hearing our fathers’ stories of fleeing their homes and fields in 1948. Now we’re living that same catastrophe again.”
Ibrahim’s three-story home was destroyed. He watched it come down stone by stone.
He spoke of the profound pain of watching the house he had built with his own hands being torn apart while he stood helpless.
"That house was our waiting room," he said. "We were just holding on until we could return to Haifa, our beautiful hometown, with its sea and fields."
Despite everything, he remained determined to rebuild. He vowed never to abandon the right of return.
Nihad al-Shawish, head of the popular committee in Nur Shams camp, said the current moment marks a “new Nakba” in the very week Palestinians commemorate the original one in 1948.
“For over 100 days, the occupation has been waging a military operation. The camps have been emptied. Entire neighbourhoods have been destroyed. Just recently, the Israeli military announced the demolition of 106 homes in the Nur Shams and Tulkarm camps, citing so-called ‘security reasons,’” he said.
He questioned the motives behind the actions, asking what security reason could justify carving out wide roads for military incursions. According to al-Shawish, however, the true aim was not military but political.
“The occupation wants to erase the camps. They are the clearest, living witnesses to the Nakba. Israel wants Palestinians to live in cities or towns, not camps, so they lose the label of ‘refugee,’” he said.
“It’s not about security. It’s about dismantling the foundation of the Palestinian cause.”
Still, he remains defiant.
“Refugees will never give up their right to return,” he said. “The camps are a station on the road back home. That right is enshrined in international law. It does not expire.”
Issam Ahmed is a Ramallah-based independent journalist focusing on security and human rights issues
This article is published in collaboration with Egab