In 1948 our village in the Beer El-Sabe district was subjected to a brutal Israeli attack, during which children, women and elderly people were killed, creating a state of terror and fear among the remaining villagers. This led to a further mass exodus of occupants of neighboring villages.
A Bedouin survivor from the Naqab, born in 1936, describes the 1948 attack on his village and the chain of displacements that ended in the refugee camps of Gaza.
Ouda Salem Ouda Abu Haddaf was born in 1936 into a Bedouin family of the Naqab, living in tents on agricultural land near Beer al-Sabe, where they grew wheat and barley and herded livestock. In 1948, when he was twelve, an attack on the village sent the family fleeing — to Al-Dhahiriya near Hebron, then Yibna, Beit Daras, Deir al-Balah and finally Rafah, where UNRWA eventually housed them in the refugee camp.
His testimony was recorded by Al Mezan researchers for Nakba Day 2024. In it he traces a life spent between Sinai and Gaza, and describes how, when Israeli leaflets ordered his neighborhood to evacuate in late 2023, the memory of 1948 returned so strongly that he at first refused to leave his home.
Sources
Source
Quoted exactly as published by Al Mezan Center for Human Rights. Visit the archive for the full testimony.
Al Mezan Center for Human RightsConnected in the archive
4 connected records4 records elsewhere in the archive are linked to this one, each by a piece of evidence you can read below.
named in this record — 4 records
One record names the other. A pointer for reading, not a claim that they belong to each other.
- Bir al-Sabaبئر السبع
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Ouda Salem Ouda Abu Haddaf was born in 1936 into a Bedouin family of the Naqab, living in tents on agricultural land near Beer al-Sabe, where they grew wheat and barley and herded livestock.
- Deir al-Balahدير البلح
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: In 1948, when he was twelve, an attack on the village sent the family fleeing — to Al-Dhahiriya near Hebron, then Yibna, Beit Daras, Deir al-Balah and finally Rafah, where UNRWA eventually housed them in the refugee camp.
- Hebronالخليل
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: In 1948, when he was twelve, an attack on the village sent the family fleeing — to Al-Dhahiriya near Hebron, then Yibna, Beit Daras, Deir al-Balah and finally Rafah, where UNRWA eventually housed them in the refugee camp.
- Nakba Day
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: His testimony was recorded by Al Mezan researchers for Nakba Day 2024.
Cite this page
Every claim above carries its sources — citation is the point.
- Chicago
“Ouda Salem Ouda Abu Haddaf — Testimony.” Testimonies, FALASTEEN.AI. Accessed 22 August 2026. https://falasteen.ai/testimonies/ouda-abu-haddaf-naqab.- MLA
“Ouda Salem Ouda Abu Haddaf — Testimony.” Testimonies, FALASTEEN.AI, 2026, https://falasteen.ai/testimonies/ouda-abu-haddaf-naqab. Accessed 22 August 2026.- BibTeX
@misc{falasteen-ouda-abu-haddaf-naqab, title = {Ouda Salem Ouda Abu Haddaf — Testimony}, howpublished = {\url{https://falasteen.ai/testimonies/ouda-abu-haddaf-naqab}}, organization = {FALASTEEN.AI — A Living Archive for Palestine}, year = {2026}, note = {Accessed 2026-08-22} }