'Keys' become a symbol of Palestinian plight amid war in Gaza: 'This Nakba here is worse'

When Eugene O'Neill said, "There is no present or future - only the past, happening over and over again - now," and when Karl Marx said, "History repeats itself, first as a tragedy, second as a farce," were they speaking of Palestinians and their 'Nakba'?

On Wednesday (May 15), Palestinians commemorated the 1948 "Nakba" (catastrophe), marking the time when hundreds and thousands of them had their homes wrenched from them as the state of Israel was born. The 76th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba was marked even as fighting rages on in Gaza, rendering hundreds of thousands homeless.

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"Keys" from the past, and present

According to reports, as a symbol of their loss, displaced Palestinians are holding onto the keys to their damaged or destroyed homes, a tradition dating back to the mass displacement of 1948.

Most people in Gaza, as per Reuters, are descendants of the Palestinians who fled or were driven from their homes by the "nakba" of 1948.

The keys to their homes have been handed down generation to generations, a symbol of what they consider their right to return to their homes. Now, keys to homes bombarded in the ongoing Gaza war are also taking on a similar symbolic meaning.

"There is no catastrophe worse than this one," an 80-year-old Palestinian woman Umm Mohammed told the news agency.

Umm is a survivor of the original Nakba, which happened when she was only a child in the southern town of Beersheba. Surviving that catastrophe, she had come to Gaza, where she has spent most of her life and where she now lives in a tent in the southern city of Rafah.

"I've been here for about 80 years and a catastrophe like this, I have not seen. Our homes have gone, our children have gone, our property has gone, our gold has gone, our incomes have gone - nothing is left. What is left for us to cry over?" she asked.

Another displaced Palestinian, 58-year-old Faridah Abu Artema currently residing in a tent encampment near Rafah said, "My mother and father told me about the Nakba, the first one, but this Nakba here is worse."

This is destruction. They've destroyed us - what we have seen, no one else has seen. This is a tragedy."

Seven months into the war, the conflict in Gaza has already claimed the lives of over 35,000 Palestinians and has displaced almost 800,000 more.

(With inputs from agencies)