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Contrary to what the first prime minister of Israel David Ben Gurion said in 1948 (referring to the Palestinians who were forced out of their land) that "the old will die and the young will forget", the memory of Al Nakba, the year Israel was created, remains in the hearts and minds of all Palestinians — young and old.
Today, the majority of Palestinians are a dispossessed people scattered all over the world. Their reality is derived from the Nakba, which comprises victimhood, displacement, and sheer loss.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict appears intractable because both peoples are contesting over the same land. While one side won the war, the other lost, but the contest is as pertinent as ever.
A group of Palestinians share their shock of losing everything in 1948; they are still reeling from the first Arab-Israeli war and continue to find it impossible to accept that their homes were taken over by another people.
Today marks the 60th anniversary of the Palestinian Catastrophe, or the "Nakba", Palestinian refugees in diaspora are still haunted by memories of the ill-omened event.
The memories of the 1948 war, which saw the forced expulsion of a people from their homeland and the bloody scenes of Israeli massacres, are still alive in the minds of Palestinian refugees.
Despite the harsh life in the Burj Al Barajneh refugee camp's narrow alleys, there is enough room for memories that can be clearly seen in every corner. National slogans on walls stand as evidence that Palestinians are still hanging on to the dream of returning to their homes and farms of figs and olive.
Sixty years on, Palestinians still taste the bitter memories of the Nakba and react to the talks about it with tearful eyes and broken hearts — despite the painful memories of dispossession and the alienation in exile.
For Palestinians, being displaced from their homes and living in exile was not a process of moving from a place to another, but rather, a systematic method of uprooting.
Yet, the Palestinians do not bear a grudge against Israelis alone, but against the Arabs as well, because they believe the occupation of Palestine would not have been possible without their help.
They believe that the 1948 war, which left Palestine in the control of Israel, was a "plot" in which Zionists bought the silence of Arab leaders.
As evidence, they raise this question: Why did not the Arabs allow Palestinians to take control of and rule the West Bank and the Gaza Strip which were not occupied that time?
This question still hangs without an answer.
Burj Al Barajneh camp
Located close to the southern suburbs of Beirut, the refugee camp of Burj Al Barajneh was created in 1949, a year after the Nakba. Despite the lapse of six decades, there are tens of women and men, who lived the catastrophe and are still living in the camp.
Khalid Ahmad Al Hassan, 82, does not speak much about Israeli atrocities, but he is strongly connected to his home village of Al Holla in the Palestinian province of Safad.
"We were well off and happy, enjoying fertile lands and abundant water," said Al Hassan who still remembers the price of cows in Palestinian pounds.
"We never sold our land, yet the creation of Israel was a plot," he said.
Twenty-eight Jewish families arrived in Al Holla in 1940, he recalls. "We lived six or seven years in peace as neighbours, and never had any problems except some occasional clashes," Al Hassan said.
"Our country was sold," he laments. "Our leaders pressurised us to leave. They asked us to send women and children to a safe haven. We took them to Al Ghajar village on the Lebanese border and came back, yet did not stay long," Al Hassan said.
"Men had to go back to Al Ghajar to rescue their families when a storm hit the area in April, 1948," he added.
Leaving his village for the last time, Al Hassan returned to Al Ghajar to support his family.
"From an exile to another, we first registered our names in Jdaidat Marjaayoun, then in Al Qulaia and finally in Al Damour, south of Beirut, which was the first place where Palestinian families settled in before moving again to Tal Al Za'atar.
Al Hassan also lost all reminders of his home in Palestine, including the key and the ownership certificate.
Mohammad Abu Hassan, 77, from Sa'sa' in Safad Province, spoke about the systematic terrorism by Israel to evict Palestine from its people. "Members of Zionist gangs used to infiltrate into my home village and other villages to terrorise its residents.
"Once, we were awakened by a massive explosion and rushed outside to find the nearby houses destroyed. We found 13 bodies, including a newly married couple," he said.
People were forced to leave their villages because they were scared after they heard of the massacres in Deir Yassin and other villages.
"The occupation of Palestine was a big plot which Arab countries were part of. This made me lose faith in Arab leaders except Hezbollah Chief Hassan Nasrallah because he is the only one feared by Israel," he concluded.
Mohi Al Deen Shahadah, 80, from Kuwaikat village in Akka, was an eyewitness to the British-Zionist cooperation through which Britons were transporting weapons from their armament warehouses to Jews.
Shahadah, who served as a policeman in Haifa, said he participated with other fighters to guard and protect his village from Israeli invaders.
The military superiority of Israel, which was manifested by the use of heavy weapons and warplanes left no room except for unarmed Palestinians to leave, he said.
"When I was forced to leave my village, I refused to abandon my gun, which was later confiscated by the Lebanese security, who told me that they will register it and keep it for me. Sixty years on, I am still waiting to recover my gun and return to my homeland," he stressed.
Mohammad Othman Dughaim, 72, from Al Kabri village, told his story about the battle that broke out between Arab fighters and the Zionist Gang of Haganah that left more than 90 dead.
Dughaim said he went with his friends to see the battle field where bodies of Zionists were still on the ground.
"Two days later, the Zionist gangs returned to the village and committed massacres against its people and destroyed their homes," he said.
Recalling the painful memories of exile, Dughaim said: "We were expelled from our village, and if we had a choice, we would have preferred to die on the soil of our homeland."
Husam Kanafani is a Lebanese journalist based in Beirut.
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