Do You See Me?! Do You Hear My Voice?!

By Dr. Nael Hijjo

September 2025
Published by Scene 48

Roots of Exile: Family, Displacement, and Hope

Writing about my personal experience as a Palestinian in exile makes me conflicted. I am a Palestinian whose family hails from ‘Askalan (al-Jura), Palestine. We were forced out of ‘Askalan and into Gaza in 1948, initially living in UN tents with hopes of a swift return. A dozen years later, hope faded. To house over two hundred thousand Palestinian refugees, the UN built simple houses with brick walls and asbestos roofs, forming eight refugee camps across the Gaza Strip, which is forty-one kilometers (twenty-five miles) long and from six to twelve kilometers (3.7 to 7.5 miles) wide. 

My grandparents, uprooted from ‘Askalan, clung to their house keys and deeds, holding tightly to the hope of return; to their house, their village, their neighbors, and their land – to the beautiful life they had been forced to leave behind, but about which they never stopped speaking, describing it to me in vivid nostalgic detail. Yet, in these refugee camps, they had no control of their lives. They were like sheep herded by regional and international forces serving foreign interests, by bureaucrats who had no understanding of the rich ethnic, linguistic, religious, and cultural diversity of the refugee population. They were assigned a collective, imagined identity, and set of expectations. 

My grandparents did their best to adapt to this new reality, but it failed to recognize their existence, true identity, humanity, and rights. The complex history persists today and is why I found myself at a loss when asked to tell my story. Where to begin? How to narrate a reality that clashes with aggressively entrenched dominant narratives? 

While some advocate coexistence and peace, the dominant voices tend toward extremism; ‎voices that deny our very existence, that falsely claim the land was empty. This lie makes ‎Palestinians wonder: are we invisible? ‎

My first shock of this denial came during my undergraduate studies in modern languages. To improve my English, I tuned to CNN, BBC, and the like. The media narratives were filled with suspicion and accusations towards Palestinians, often portraying us as outsiders or barbarians, while ignoring or justifying Israeli crimes, from occupation to killing Palestinians!  …

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