On this day, 15 May 2026, I became a refugee for 28,489 days.  I never forgot it for a moment. I shall never cease to try to return home by any means.

I was born in al Ma’in, my family’s home for over 200 years. Al Ma’in is located in Beer Sheba district, about 30km southeast of Gaza city. In April 1948, the Haganah, the Jewish militia committed many massacres, notably Deir Yassin.

At the age of ten, I was at the boarding school in Beet Sheba. As Jewish attacks continued, we were told to go home for safety. I walked home in a hazardous journey.  I looked back and saw the lovely Ottoman building of my school in Beer Sheba disappear in the horizon.

Six weeks later, on 14 May 1948, the Haganah, the Jewish miliary militia, attacked my home in al Ma’in, killed anyone in sight, burned and destroyed our homes and buildings. Particularly sad, they demolished the school which my father built in 1920. On that day I became a refugee.

On that same day, a Russian Polish man spoke to other settlers in Tel Aviv and declared a state for them on the ruins of my home. His name was David Gruen (Ben Gurion).

This man travelled from Plonsk to Beer Sheba, Palestine, a distance of 4,800 km. His journey ended in Beer Sheba where I was born.

This man travelled – by choice – to Palestine and claimed himself as Palestinian at first. In Palestine he was received peacefully. But his aim was to destroy the country that received him.

He gathered a group of like-minded immigrants to settle in Palestine and formed a secret army to kill or expel his hosts. In March 1948, while Palestine was under the administration of the British Mandate, he initiated his Plan Dalet and unleashed his force named Haganah to attack, occupy and expel the Palestinian inhabitants, his hosts.

In a matter of ten months, the Haganah, composed of 120,000 soldiers in 9 brigades attacked and depopulated 530 cities and villages. That could not have been executed easily. It required 95 massacres at least, in which 15,000 Palestinians were killed.

One week after the Israel attack on Beer Sheba on 21 October 1948, Ben Gurion came to inspect Beer Sheba town. He admired the fine stone government buildings, Arab houses and the boys’ school, where I was a student. He liked them so much so he decided to live there.

He was buried at Sde Boker, a little to the south of the town, near the Arab village Rakhama (renamed Yeroham in Hebrew). His grave was not a motley of scattered white stones. It was a huge edifice in a big compound containing a lecture hall, a library and meeting rooms. The worshippers of Zionism hover around the grave in solemn........

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