Story of Abubaker Abed

My grandfather was displaced from the village of Beit Daras during the Nakba of 1948.
Beit Daras was located northeast of al-Majdal, between Gaza and Ramla.

It was an ancient village once inhabited by our Canaanite ancestors. On May 21, 1948, Zionist forces seized the village and later established several settlements on its land. In 1948, the village population was around 1,590 people. Among its well-known families were Baroud, Abed, Abu Shamala, and Al-Maqadma.

My grandfather and his family fled south on foot until they settled in Deir al-Balah. There, they lived the life of refugees. He and his family stayed in a small house made of corrugated metal sheets, shared with his nephew’s family. In Deir al-Balah, my grandfather opened a small shop to provide basic supplies and food for the displaced families arriving there, including grains and simple goods.

Money was scarce, and people could barely survive after the trauma, pain, and dangers of displacement. My grandfather often sold goods on credit, waiting patiently until people were able to pay. The original residents of Deir al-Balah would also borrow from him and repay their debts according to the agricultural seasons: olives, dates, oranges, and other harvests. Many people were unable to repay what they owed, and my grandfather forgave their debts, believing the reward belonged with God.

My grandfather lived for 106 years. He witnessed many of the defining events in Palestine’s history. He was born in 1868 and passed away in 1992. He was a simple and tolerant man who carried no hatred toward anyone. He lived with the hope of returning to Beit Daras and never lost faith in that return, not even for a moment. Whenever people offered him land or property in exchange for debts owed to him by well-known families in Deir al-Balah, he would always say: “Why would we own land across the world? Tomorrow we will return. We must return.” When my father once offered to take him to visit Beit Daras, he refused and said: “I cannot bear to see it occupied. If I see it, I will die from the shock.” My grandmother stood beside him throughout his life. She helped him with everything, worked alongside him in buying and selling goods, recorded debts, and managed the affairs of the household.

My father was the youngest son of my grandparents and held a special place in their hearts. From a young age, he accompanied my grandfather on long walks to collect debts from people living in distant areas across Deir al-Balah, stretching from Wadi Gaza in the north to Wadi al-Salqa in the south. Imagine being a child and spending your days crossing refugee landscapes on foot collecting debts from equally poor people. Capitalism somehow always finds a way to become tragic theater.

My father deeply loved his parents and never refused them anything. He helped them at home and at work in every way he could according to his age. He cooked, cleaned the house, and helped them overcome many of life’s difficulties. My grandfather used to call him “my cane,” because he relied on him so heavily.

My grandmother was also a major source of support for my father’s dreams and ambitions. She encouraged him to study what he loved and to follow his own path. Although he first studied science, he later pursued fine arts. My father often drew inspiration from his parents. He frequently painted them or spoke about them in his literary and cultural reflections. He was a man of many talents. Before becoming a teacher, he worked in several fields: as a journalist, caricature artist, theater director, and set designer. The motto he always repeated to us was: “Be different. Be free. Be yourself.”

Abubaker Abed (2025)

Certain houses within the village were reconstructed through oral descriptions and fragmented historical records, without complete photographic or architectural references. Rather than concealing uncertainty, the project preserves traces of fragmentation within the virtual environment itself. In several scenes, absence became part of the reconstruction process, reflecting how memory survives through interrupted continuity, erased landscapes, and incomplete recollection. Below are examples of how uncertainty and approximation were negotiated while reconstructing 360° spatial memory. In certain scenes, spatial absence was also used to reconstruct the emotional condition of memory itself. One sequence reconstructs the testimony of two children fleeing through the fields during the attack on Beit Daras. Rather than recreating the environment in full visual detail, the scene reduces the landscape into fragmented black space, minimal forms, and partial movement. The absence of color, architectural detail, and stable surroundings reflects the instability of traumatic recollection, where fear, movement, and survival remain more vivid than the environment itself. In this scene, incompleteness became part of the emotional reconstruction process rather than a limitation to conceal.

It was early spring in 1948, in the village of Beit Daras, not far from the town of Al-Majdal. My grandfather, Mahmood, owned a small shop. He lived with my grandmother, Fatmeh, who was pregnant, and their two sons—Ahmad and Mohammad. Life was unfolding as usual. The fields were green. The sky full of birds—sparrows, storks—flying home.

But that day, the birdsong stopped. The air went still. A sudden roar shook the earth—louder than thunder. Mortars fired from the north, from Kibbutz Tabiyya. Fire rained down on the village. Nine neighbours were killed. The orchards that fed families were set ablaze. From that day on, all they remembered were the screams and the smell of their village, burning.

It was a cold day in January 
When my grandmother gave birth to Aishah.
For a moment, there was joy. By then, my grandfather had a small shop
near the Deir al-Balah market. A few days later, the sky roared.
Israeli planes flew low toward the aid center by the market.
Hundreds of refugee stood in line, waiting for food. Without warning, bombs fell.
They destroyed everything
The line became a mass of bodies. Some say 100 were killed.
Others say 250.
No one could count the pieces. One family had just welcomed a newborn that morning.
The father ran to find a doctor.
He never came back.

My grandfather spent the rest of his life in the refugee camp,still waiting to return. He refused to buy land. As the family grew Camp Tents turned to bricks. Bricks turned to cement. But the pain stayed the same. My grandfather had two more children Hamda, and my father, Wisam. Wisam was born in 1964, in a time of trauma, dislocation and the planting of resistance. He was just three the Israeli army occupied Gaza By 1970, illegal settlements rose near the camp. More land was stolen. To protect that theft, they built fences, watchtowers, and checkpoints.

my father, was just three when the Israeli army occupied Gaza
 in 1967. By 1970, illegal settlements rose near the camp.
More land was stolen.
 To protect that theft,
they built fences, watchtowers, and checkpoints.

In 1987, First Intifada began. It started when an Israeli truck ran over Palestinian refugees. People rose up. Boys threw stones in protest. Israel answered by breaking their bones. Oppression only grew. Life became curfews, raids, and arrests. Gaza began to look like a ghetto

My grandfather passed away in 1992, carrying with him over 44 years of hope to return to Beit Daras. Then came peace or the promise of it. The promise of a state

But it came wrapped in a 40-kilometer fence 
and two decades of siege, more violence, and more pain.

I was born in 2002, the year Israel killed 192 Palestinian children. My father gave me a special name: Abu Baker. One day I asked him, “Why that name?” He said,”Because you will carry our message and our hopes across the world.” Like him, I grew up in the camp but by then it was more crowded than ever. The siege had tightened. So many things were not allowed in. There was no land left to build on, I spent my days running through the alleys, chasing dreams all the way to the beach. Soon a never-ending buzzing sound fills our sky the sound of drones,disrupting what was left of our sleep,what’s left of our lives.

I was too young when I learned that the machine of death chases children— not just those sleeping in their mothers’ arms, not just those sheltering in schools, not just those picking strawberries in the fields,but even those kicking a ball by the sea. Israeli naval forces fired three missiles at a group of boys playing soccer. Four of them were killed. They were my age. I imagined them running, laughing— until joy turned to screams, and silence took over.

Throughout my life, Israeli offensives kept coming each with a biblical name, each leaving deeper wounds. Then came October 7, a rupture in decades of silence after generations caged by siege and dispossession. In the face of an injustice older than me, older than my parents— From that day, Israel stripped us of our humanity. While the world watched the genocide unfold, the horrors only grew. hunger and thirst laid siege to our bodies, bombs to our homes,darkness to our future. They took from me Al-Hasan Matar my best friend. So many lives stolen,too many to count. But we counted We counted the children killed, the dreams buried,last breaths beneath collapsed homes and schools,missing limbs, books burned to ashes,shattered tents, the weight of rubble. We counted until there was nothing left to count. In the dark, we pass down the names each one a flame against forgetting. We are not numbers.