One hundred and ten years ago, my grandfather on my mother’s side used to leave his parents’ home in an-Naqab and come to Gaza to trade.
Sulaiman Abu-Said would leave on his camel from an-Naqab at 5:00 am, arrive in Gaza at 7:00 am, sell his goods, and go back home at 5:00 pm. But that is history now. Today, Israel would never allow this to happen.
Moving without borders and traveling without restrictions is part of the nomads’ identity and way of life, but Israel destroyed that too.
During the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, the semi-arid region of the an-Naqab was inhabited mostly by semi-nomadic Bedouin tribes.
Heavily armed Jewish militias attacked an-Naqab in 1948. During the Nakba they killed many Palestinians and forced even more to leave. Some of them left for Jordan, some for the
— source mondoweiss.net | Doaa Alremeili, Mahmoud Nasser | Feb 25, 2022