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 Beer 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.

My foe

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 procession, celebrating the demise of the deceased hosts.

This is the tale of two journeys. One journey is that of a Polish man, David Ben Gurion, who travelled from his birthplace in Plonsk Poland to Beer Sheba, Palestine at a distance of 4,200 km. His mission was to kill and displace his hosts and be buried in their town.   The other journey was mine, expelled from his home in al Ma’in and became a refugee in Canada 10,000 km away.

Neither story will be forgotten or left without remedy.

Right of Return

In the years that followed 1948, seventy-eight so far, I never ceased one day to think, plan or strive for my Right of Return home.

I started school in Cairo, where my brothers were already at Cairo (Fouad I) University. In the summer holiday I returned to Gaza to see scenes I had never imagined.

Masses of people were flooding a small enclave, which became known as Gaza Strip. They took shelter in schools, mosques and open areas. They tried to find means of living. I saw one man with a small table on the streetside selling sandwiches. With determination, he turned it into a restaurant weeks later.

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The refugees reassembled their villages intact. The village mukhtar (headman) presiding, he supervised the location of his people, tried to put them together in one camp and look after them. They stayed together, lived close to each other. They intermarried as if they had never left. They reassembled the village intact.  Their tents in the refugee camps were placed close. Every camp was identified by the village of origin, given the name of that village.

The village structure was retained but moved to a new location. Characteristics of the village were maintained. One village was noted for its weaving. They strung their weaving posts along the camp roads, not to be touched by anyone.

Two hundred and forty villages from the southern half of Palestine that were attacked, massacred and expelled, re- assembled in a tiny place, only 1.3% of Palestine, aptly called Gaza Strip.

This tragedy would not go without reaction. Soon after, resistance groups (Fedayeen, self sacrificers) were formed to attack the invaders of their homes. No match for the enemy’s firepower, they exceeded the enemy in determination. They started to fight back.

My cousin Hasan was one of them. He was an affable young man with a smiling face. When he came back from a foray in the occupied territory, he told us what happened to this or that house or garden. He was killed by a buried mine on his route.

The refugees formed themselves in political groups. My cousin, Abdullah, a veteran of 1936 Revolt, formed the Executive Committee of the Refugees Conference. It remained speaking for the refugees until PLO was formed in 1964.

Exile trek

For me, I continued my education in Cairo till I got a degree in Engineering. I travelled to London where I got a PhD in engineering from University College London.

It was in London when I got transformation of my life path. Here I am in London, where the British treachery crowned by Balfour Declaration took place. I pored over documents in its various libraries and centers.

I travelled to Europe, particularly Germany where I found aerial photos of Palestine from WWI. Over the years, I accumulated many maps and documents.

I found records of my country including Al Ma’in in colonial libraries but little in ours. The reason is simple. We did not plan to invade other countries. We did not need their maps.

This documentation resulted in the production of several maps and the Atlas of Palestine in several languages and editions.

 

Right of Return

What to do with all this? The answer is clear: to plan the road to return home.

First, I wanted to know what the Israeli attackers made of my country. I made a detailed study, village by village, city by city, to find how many Jews live in Palestinian lands and where.

I found a startling result.

There are 246 Palestinian village lands which have no Jews today. There are 272 village lands which have few Jews, less than 5000 Jews. Beer Sheba district is practically empty except for Beer Sheba City.

Generally, Jews live in 927 listed localities with a total population of 5,509,000 (year 2020) within the armistice line of 1949. But that may be misleading. Only 15 localities out of 927 are sizable, they have a population of over 100,000. Others are much smaller: 62 have a population between 10 and 100,000, and the largest number, 850,  are small settlements, mostly Kibbutz, which have a few thousands.

This means that 90% of Jews live in 77 localities out of 927, or eight percent of the total number of localities. The area they occupy is 1,400 km2 or 6% of Israel’s area. The rest of Palestinian land is empty, used as military camps.

The obvious conclusion is that occupied Palestine is largely empty. Palestinians can return home without much displacement of the settlers.

In Beer Sheba district, the situation is more striking. There are only 150,000 (2020) settlers, their number is smaller than a refugee camp in Gaza. The Jewish settlers occupy an area of 12,500 km2, half of Palestine, with a density of 7 persons/km2. The owners of this land live in Gaza refugee camps at a density of 20,000 persons per km2. The contrast is striking.

https://www.plands.org/en/articles-speeches/speeches/2025-(1)/palestine-is-a-land-without-a-people

Then comes a Polish man by the name of David Gruen. He claims to be a native of Beer Sheba.

He travelled 4000 km from Poland to live in Beer Sheba. I was expelled from Beer Sheba and had to travel to Canada, 10,000 km away, to resume my life.

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I have a history of my family for 200 years and the history of my people the Palestinians for over 4000 years.

We have names of our places recorded by Eusebius in 313 AD, still known and used till today. Ben Gurion grafted names of the same places to feign original residence.

The bones of our ancestors are buried in Palestine soil. Its ancient trees are planted by us. They survived in our weather, but not those brought the invaders.

I spent years of documenting my home and Palestine in general. I made extensive research for how the return can be implemented.

I arranged a competition among young Palestinian architects in which 330 participated so far. They completed the reconstruction plans for 60 villages.

in 1993, there was a ray of a light in the darkness of all Nakba. With Oslo agreement, it looked like the return home was possible.

I documented the geography and demography of Palestine. In the following years I produced reports and atlases which showed among other things that the return home is not only a right legally but also feasible.

I have shown that Palestine we lost is still largely empty and 90% of Jews who live there only occupy 6-10% of it. This means that most of the refugees who were expelled from 530 cities and villages can return home without large displacement of the Jewish settlers on their land.

The Right of Return is only sacred to Palestinians, legal under any instrument of internation law but it is also feasible and doable. This can be implemented when the colonial forces that planted Zionism in Palestine and made its people refugees repent and make amends for their sins. That is by enabling Palestinians to live in Palestine as they have done for centuries.

My life journey, through many countries as a foreigner, should end where it started, at Ma’in Abu Sitta.

My foe, Ben Gurion, a Polish man, is buried in my hometown, miles away from his birthplace.

And I, Salman Abu Sitta, wish to be buried in my birthplace.