Photo Courtesy of AP
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Saeed Abu Elaish lost his wife, two daughters, and two dozen other relatives in Israeli airstrikes over the last 15 months. His house in northern Gaza was destroyed, and now he and the surviving members of his family live in a tent amidst the rubble of their home.
Despite this, Abu Elaish is resolute in his refusal to leave, even after President Donald Trump proposed relocating all Palestinians from Gaza to allow the U.S. to take over and rebuild the territory. Rights groups have condemned Trump’s remarks, calling them a push for “ethnic cleansing” and forced displacement.
“We categorically reject and will resist any plans to deport and transfer us from our land,” he said from the Jabaliya refugee camp.
Trump’s call to depopulate Gaza has shocked Palestinians. Following a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas last month, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians rushed to return to their homes, even those that had been destroyed.
Some experts have suggested that Trump’s proposal may be a negotiation tactic, but Palestinians see it as an effort to erase them from their homeland, akin to the 1948 expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians during the creation of Israel—a period known to Palestinians as the “Nakba” or “Catastrophe.” Trump’s comments marked a stark shift from previous U.S. policy, aligning with far-right Israeli politicians who have advocated for pushing Palestinians out of Gaza, possibly into Egypt.
“We don’t want a repeat of our ancestors’ tragedy,” said Abu Elaish, a healthcare worker.
Abu Elaish’s own family has experienced displacement. In May 1948, Israeli forces expelled his grandparents from their village of Hoj in what is now southern Israel, just outside Gaza. The family resettled in Gaza’s Jabaliya camp, which eventually grew into a dense urban area. Much of it has been destroyed in recent months due to heavy fighting.
Mustafa al-Gazzar, now in his 80s, recalled fleeing his home in the town of Yabneh, which is now part of central Israel, in 1948. Sitting outside his destroyed home in Rafah, southern Gaza, he said he could not imagine leaving again after surviving 15 months of war.
“You think you’ll expel me abroad and bring other people in my place? … I would rather live in my tent, under rubble,” he said. “I won’t leave. Put that in your brain.”
“I want to return to my original land, where I was born and where I will die,” he continued, referring to Yabneh, near the present-day city of Yavneh in Israel. He emphasized support for a two-state solution. “This is the ideal solution: peace for the Israelis and peace for the Palestinians, living side by side.”
Trump’s comments on Tuesday, made alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, included suggestions that Palestinians be relocated to Egypt, Jordan, or other countries, with promises of a “beautiful place.” However, both Egypt and Jordan rejected these proposals.
Trump stated that the U.S. would take control of Gaza and transform it into a “Riviera of the Middle East,” dismissing the idea that Palestinians would refuse to leave. His top diplomat later clarified that the president’s plan only involved temporarily relocating Palestinians to allow for Gaza’s reconstruction.
Amna Omar, 71, from central Gaza, called Trump a “madman.” She had traveled to Egypt during the war for her husband’s cancer treatment, but he died in Cairo in October after doctors determined his cancer had gone untreated for too long. She said she wants to return to Gaza as soon as possible.
“Gaza is our land, our home. We as Gazans have the right to the land and want to rebuild it,” Omar said. “I don’t want to die in Egypt like my husband. I want to die at home.”
Despite the devastation across Gaza, Palestinians are determined to return to their homes. Many have returned to the rubble, even though they are left homeless, with scarce water and no electricity. For most, the destruction only reinforces their resolve to stay.
“We remain here, even if it means living in the rubble of our homes — better that than living in humiliation elsewhere,” said Ibrahim Abu Rizk, whose home in Rafah was also destroyed. “For a year and a half, we’ve been slaughtered, bombed, and destroyed—only to leave just like that?”
The ceasefire brokered by the U.S., Egypt, and Qatar includes provisions for Palestinians to return to their homes and a massive international reconstruction effort. However, the plan’s success depends on negotiations between Israel and Hamas about who will govern Gaza.
International law prohibits the forced removal of populations. The Israeli rights group B’tselem criticized Trump’s remarks, stating that they amounted to a call for ethnic cleansing, displacing up to 2 million Palestinians. They warned that this could lead to a second Nakba for Gaza’s residents.
Palestinian refugees have long demanded the right to return to homes in what is now Israel, a right recognized for refugees under international law. Israel argues that this right should not apply to Palestinians and fears that allowing a mass return would undermine the country’s Jewish majority.
Throughout the war, many Palestinians feared that Israel’s aim was to force them into neighboring Egypt. Though the Israeli government denied this, some right-wing politicians have advocated for encouraging Palestinians to leave Gaza. The violence has also spread to the Israeli-occupied West Bank, which is home to more than 500,000 settlers.
Trump’s call to resettle Palestinians was rejected by Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and neighboring Arab countries like Jordan and Lebanon, where many refugees live.
“If he wants to displace the population of Gaza,” said Mohammed al-Amiri, a resident of Ramallah in the West Bank, “then he should return them to their original homeland from which they were displaced in 1948, inside Israel, in the depopulated villages.”
