Palestinians displaced by Israel’s incursion in Gaza hold on to keys from their damaged or destroyed homes as a symbol of returning to their land one day, Al Jazeera reports.

For many, it’s a tradition that their grandparents started during the Nakba, which means “catastrophe” in Arabic, in 1948.

In Syria, 13 years after the start of the country’s civil war, many of the thousands who have been displaced also keep the keys to the homes they were forced out of – just as Palestinian refugees do.