The photo depicts a Palestinian girl wearing hair clip of a key and earrings that hold number 68. Palestinians commemorate the “nakba” (catastrophe): the expulsion of some 700,000 Palestinians from their homes in the war of 1948, which resulted in the founding of Israel. The key clip embodies the Palestine’s right of return to their homeland.
When the Palestinian refugees of 1948 and 1967 left their homes, they took their keys with them in the belief that their return was imminent. The keys have been passed on from generation to generation as a keepsake, as a memory of their lost homes and as lasting symbols of their desired “right of return.
Photo credit: Anonymous