Palestinian Refugee 112 Years old Shares Key for Al-Nakba

Palestinian refugee Mahmud Obied, 112, from the Dheisheh refugee camp holds the key of his former house near a huge 10-metre long iron key displayed at a workshop in the Aida refugee camp in the West Bank city of Bethlehem on May 6, 2008, which was ordered by Palestinian refugee institutions to mark the Nakba (the catastrophe).

The key will join a giant 12-metre lock which together will stand as a symbol of the Palestinian refugee's Right of Return following the displacement of populations that occurred during the previous war on 15 May 1948, an event which the Palestinians term as Al-Nakba.

The main issue of what the Al-Nakba is and this occurred in 1948, was a large population of Palestinians became refugees, uprooted many times from the only homes and area of Palestine they ever knew. The reason for this is because families tended to live in the same homes and areas for not just generations, but also thousands of years.

The significance of the keys, is they tended to be what was left of the homes they had to leave behind and with the hope they would be able to return one day.

Furthermore, at the time the Al-Nakba occurred, Palestine became a huge population of homeless or displaced people.

From my understanding, what was hard for many Palestinians for a long time, was the why, this would happen to them.