In brief
At 89, Ayish Younis recounts his traumatic experiences from the 1948 Palestinian exodus and his current life in a tent after losing his home in Rafah due to the Israel-Hamas war. Despite hopes for calm, he expresses deep skepticism about Gaza's future as destruction looms and the possibility of rebuilding remains uncertain.
I rode away on a camel with my grandmother, along a sandy road, and I started to cry. Ayish Younis, now 89 years old, shares memories of the worst moment of his life, a memory that resonates through over seven decades of trauma and displacement. In 1948, amidst the first Arab-Israeli war, Ayish fled his home in the village of Barbara, known for its fertile lands, alongside his family as they sought safety from violence.
The family, facing imminent danger, fled to a small area that would become the Gaza Strip, where Ayish found himself living in tent camps established by the United Nations as the conflict left approximately 700,000 Palestinians homeless.
Fast forward to today, Ayish is once again living in a tent near Khan Younis after being forced to leave his home in Rafah due to an Israeli evacuation order amidst a conflict with Hamas, which has only exacerbated the misery in the besieged enclave.
With his four-storey family house destroyed, Ayish reflects on the harsh reality of being back where they started, living in a makeshift tent, facing the existential questions of rebuilding amid devastation. After we left Barbara and lived in a tent, we eventually succeeded in building a house. But now, the situation is more than a catastrophe. I don't know what the future holds, he laments.
Despite a brief ceasefire and returning of hostages, Ayish harbors deep skepticism about Gaza's future. I don't believe Gaza has any future... I hope it will be calm, but I believe the Israelis will do whatever they like. His son, Nizar, echoes the sentiment, emphasizing the moral devastation and total destruction of infrastructure within the community.
The emotional weight of conflict has also taken a toll on Ayish’s family, which once celebrated large gatherings and witnessed achievements with his 18 children and 79 grandchildren. However, amidst aspirations of rebuilding, the reality is one of uncertainty, as the scars of war shape their lives.
Despite the overwhelming odds, the Younis family’s history intersects resilience and hope. As Ayish dreams of returning to his ancestral land in Barbara, long lost to historical upheaval, the thematics of displacement still dominate the narrative of the Palestinian struggle in a land marked by conflict. As Ayish reflects, In the end, I just want to go back to Barbara, with my whole extended family, and again taste the fruit that I remember from there. It's a poignant reminder of the enduring human spirit amidst relentless hardship in Gaza.
