DEIR AL-BALAH: Blink and you might miss the few stone walls that are all that’s left of the village that Yusuf Abu Hamam’s family was forced to flee when he was an infant in 1948. The village, Al-Joura, was demolished by the Israeli military at the time. It has since vanished under neighborhoods of the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon and the grounds of a national park. The neighborhood where Abu Hamam’s family ended up — and where he spent most of his life — now lies also largely in ruins.

Millions of Palestinians are marking the 78th anniversary of the Nakba. That's Arabic for “catastrophe,” referring to the mass expulsion and flight of some 750,000 Palestinians…

DEIR AL-BALAH: Blink and you might miss the few stone walls that are all that’s left of the village that Yusuf Abu Hamam’s family was forced to flee when he was an infant in 1948.…

Yusuf Abu Hamam’s life sits at the intersection of two wars separated by 78 years but tied together by the same outcome: displacement, erasure, and a...