Speaking ahead of Nakba Day on May 15, 2026, which commemorates the mass expulsion of more than 750,000 Palestinians during the creation of Israel in 1948, Gaza survivors Haia Mohammed and Danah Bseiso delivered harrowing testimony about life under Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza, describing displacement, starvation, bombardment and psychological trauma that they say will shape generations to come.
The discussion, broadcast by Palestine Deep Dive and hosted by journalist Hala Hanina, explored what the two women described as the continuation of the Nakba in real time through the destruction of Gaza and the forced displacement of Palestinians from their homes and land.
Danah Bseiso, a Palestinian law student specialising in Public International Law, is a contributor to We Are Not Numbers and part of Leiden University’s Picturing Scholasticide project documenting the destruction of Gaza’s education system. Haia is a Palestinian poet and artist whose work focuses on memory, resistance, grief and displacement. Both women survived Israel’s assault on Gaza before eventually escaping abroad.
“The Nakba for me is us and where we are now,” Haia said during the interview. “We all came here on scholarships because our university is bombed, our city is bombed. We don’t have a choice. We were forced to be here.”
Bseiso described the Nakba not as a historical event but as an ongoing structure shaping Palestinian life itself.
“It started in 1948, but it shaped who we are,” she said. “The occupation is still ongoing, and now more than before. The Nakba is still happening.”
Inheriting the Nakba
Both women explained that they grew up hearing stories from grandparents and parents who survived the expulsions of 1948, but neither fully grasped the scale of those experiences until Israel’s assault on Gaza forced them into similar conditions.
Haia said that as a child she listened to stories about displacement almost as though they belonged to another world.
“I believed my grandfather and my father one hundred percent,” she said. “But inside me I couldn’t process it. It felt like fantasy. Then the genocide came to Gaza and we were displaced, living in tents, cooking on fire. I realised I inherited the Nakba. I didn’t just hear about it. I lived it.”
She described the emotional devastation of exile and separation from family members now scattered across multiple countries.
“My brother is in Germany. My family is in Gaza. I don’t know when we will sit together at one table again,” she said. “This is the Nakba. You don’t have the feeling of home anymore.”
Bseiso similarly described how inherited memories of Palestinian suffering became reality during repeated Israeli assaults on Gaza throughout her childhood.
Her first major memory came during Israel’s 2008–09 military assault on Gaza when she was six years old.
“The schools stopped. Bombings were happening everywhere. We were displaced from our house,” she recalled. “A bombing happened nearby and the glass shattered into the room. My cousin and I couldn’t speak from fear.”
She said the experience fundamentally altered her understanding of life.
“You grow older and realise this didn’t end in 1948,” she said. “Entire families were erased from the civil registry in 2021. It’s still happening.”
“The Drone Came Into My Room”
Among the most disturbing testimonies were descriptions of Israeli drones operating directly inside civilian homes and displacement areas.
Haia recounted a night during the assault when a drone entered her room through an open window while she lay awake unable to sleep.
“The drone got into my room,” she said. “Everyone else was asleep. I wrapped myself in the blanket because if it sees you awake it can shoot you directly. I was shaking.”
She explained that many Gazans keep windows open even during winter because closed windows shatter from nearby explosions.
Bseiso added that Israeli drones often emitted sounds designed to lure civilians outside.
“They imitated crying children or dogs,” she said. “People would go to help and then be shot.”
The psychological trauma, they said, remains deeply embedded even after reaching safety abroad.
Haia described how sudden noises or stress still trigger panic responses associated with bombardment.
“If I wake up stressed or late for something, my body thinks it’s because of bombing,” she said. “Sometimes I need an hour just to convince myself it’s safe enough to get out of bed.”
She also said the assault destroyed her emotional connection with the sky itself.
Before the war, sunsets formed part of her daily routine as a writer and artist. Afterwards, the sky became inseparable from drones, missiles and fear.
“I used to love the sky,” she said. “Now even in London when I hear a plane, I still look up in fear. All of us from Gaza do it.”
Forced Displacement Across Gaza
Bseiso described being displaced from Gaza City after bombardments struck directly outside her relatives’ building.
One injured man died on the stairwell while residents fled in panic.
“There was blood all over the stairs,” she recalled. “We didn’t know what was happening. We just kept running.”
Her family later fled south under Israeli evacuation orders while bombardments continued along the supposed evacuation corridors.
“I was driving while my hands were shaking,” she said. “I was praying the whole time we would survive.”
Haia’s family similarly moved repeatedly between relatives’ homes before eventually settling in Al Mawasi, the overcrowded coastal zone Israel labelled a “safe area” despite repeated attacks there.
“Our home was bombed four days after we left,” she said. “The concrete collapsed exactly onto the bed where I used to sleep.”
Today, both women say their homes and even the land beneath them now lie inside Israeli military-controlled “yellow zones” that Palestinians cannot access.
“We lost the home and now we lost the land too,” Haia said.
Starvation and the Search for Flour
The women also spoke extensively about famine conditions inside Gaza.
Haia recalled periods when hunger became so severe she struggled simply to walk.
“There was literally nothing to put in your mouth,” she said. “I’m 23 years old and I couldn’t walk four minutes to the beach because of starvation.”
Her brother eventually risked his life to retrieve flour from aid distribution points that Palestinians increasingly describe as massacre sites.
“He came back carrying fifty kilos of flour and everyone celebrated like it was a wedding,” she said. “But my mother begged him never to go back again.”
Bseiso condemned Western commentators who mocked images of Gazans participating in a marathon amid the destruction.
“We don’t just teach life,” she said. “We want to live it.”
The women noted that many marathon participants were amputees, reflecting Gaza’s catastrophic number of severe injuries resulting from the assault.
“I Don’t Want To Be A Hero”
Throughout the interview both women rejected portrayals of Palestinians as endlessly resilient symbols rather than ordinary people.
“I don’t want to be a hero,” Haia said. “I just want a normal life. I want Sunday dinner with my family. I want to go to university. I want to go to the beach.”
Bseiso argued that constant emphasis on Palestinian resilience risks dehumanising survivors.
“Yes, we are resilient because we had no choice,” she said. “But that shouldn’t mean people stop caring about our feelings and emotions.”
The women repeatedly contrasted ordinary life in Britain with the constant survival calculations dominating life in Gaza.
“People here talk about the weather,” Haia said. “Meanwhile my family is starving.”
“Gaza Is the Future If This Continues”
The discussion concluded with warnings that technologies used against Palestinians are increasingly spreading internationally.
The women specifically raised concerns about artificial intelligence, surveillance systems and data technologies connected to military and security infrastructures.
“What’s happening in Gaza is the future of humanity if this continues,” Bseiso warned.
Haia urged British citizens to recognise the implications before such systems become fully normalised elsewhere.
“Stop talking only about the weather,” she said. “Go stop these people before they come here too.”
Their testimony adds to a growing body of firsthand Palestinian accounts documenting not only the destruction of Gaza itself but also the enduring psychological, emotional and generational trauma carried by survivors who increasingly describe the assault as a second Nakba unfolding in real time.
