Survivors of Israel’s war in Gaza say the idea they should now leave marks a continuation of a campaign since 1948 to displace them from their land
Aya Hassuna, 30, left her home in Gaza City’s eastern Shejaiya neighbourhood with her husband and two young children in November 2023, heading south amongst crowds of Palestinians forced to flee as Israel’s brutal assault on the enclave gathered momentum.
But Hassuna was the only member of the family who survived to make the painful return journey.
It is now almost eight months, Hassuna told Middle East Eye, since Hamza and Raghad, aged four and two, were killed alongside their father by Israeli bombing in Khan Younis.
Hassuna said the family had been given the chance to escape from Gaza to Egypt through the Rafah crossing but had refused, fearing that, if they left, they would never be able to return.
She had rejected another opportunity to leave for a job abroad since being widowed, she said.
Now Hassuna has a message for Donald Trump, who this week proposed that Palestinians should be moved out of Gaza and that the territory should be owned by the US.
“Even after everything I’ve been through, I refuse to leave,” she said.
“We’ve just been through a war. The occupation tried to displace the people of Gaza to the Sinai Peninsula. But despite the siege, despite the genocide, despite the destruction, and despite the hunger, they couldn’t drive us out.”
Last month, Hassuna was again walking, this time with hundreds of thousands of people making their way northwards after a ceasefire was agreed between Hamas and Israel.
Initially she and her sister had hoped to drive north, but after a day and a night stuck in traffic she decided to make the journey on foot.
“I was walking amongst the people. The road was tiring, especially when you see with your own eyes the destruction, the corpses on the side of the road. You forget your own hardships when you see the suffering of others.
“As soon as the roads opened people were moving back to the north. We do not give any regard to Trump’s statements. We are holding onto our land.”
‘A thief’s mentality’
Muhammad Abdel Majeed, who is in his mid-30s, has also returned to northern Gaza to see what is left of his family’s home in Jabalia refugee camp.
Majeed is the descendent of Palestinians displaced from modern-day Israel during the events known to Palestinians as the Nakba, or “catastrophe”, in 1948.
“I returned alone to inspect my house. I found the entire area completely wiped off the map,” he said.
“Trump’s statements are a continuation of the systematic war crimes against the Palestinian people. He wants to harm them and pass on the historical injustice by displacing them.
Majeed accused the US president of having “a thief’s mentality”.
“He thinks about investments and money before thinking about a person’s right to a decent life, before he thinks about the tortured, orphaned, and wounded children of Gaza.”
Muhammad al-Qeeq, a writer and political researcher in the occupied West Bank, is also dismissive of Trump’s comments.
He suggests they may have been made to provoke a response from Arab states, and perhaps draw them into discussions about the future of Gaza, and the question of who should pay for its urgent reconstruction.
“I think what Trump is doing is an attempt to raise the ceiling for achievements,” he said.
“He says: ‘You don’t want me to displace or occupy Gaza. So you must do the following: enter Gaza with Arab forces and move toward normalisation with Israel.’”
Sword over Palestinian heads
Still, Qeeq said the image of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu standing alongside Trump at the White House press conference represented a defeat for Israel.
“He had to come and beg the Americans to help him, even after all these months of support, which culminated in the failure to crush Hamas or the Palestinian people.
“The attempt to implement the map of the new Middle East began in Gaza and failed in Gaza because the Palestinians would not be displaced.”
But Hana Amoury, a political activist based in Jaffa, said Trump’s comments had alarmed Palestinians living in Israel because they spoke to their own fears of displacement and sense of insecurity.
“As to whether this marks the beginning of the displacement of the Palestinians, the beginning was in 1948 and it is still ongoing,” Amoury said.
“Displacement is a sword raised over the head of every Palestinian. Existence is an act of resistance and Israel understands this very well.”
Israel’s war in Gaza, its brutal treatment of Palestinian prisoners, the expansion of settlements in the West Bank and its ongoing assault on Jenin refugee camp were all acts of force intended to break Palestinian resolve, she said.
But she warned that grand plans promising economic development, prosperity, and “normalisation” – such as those articulated by Trump – also posed a threat to Palestinian identity.
Amoury said: “It is as if Israel is telling Palestinians: ‘Come, prosper as individuals, live your own life, but forget about collective demands, national identity, and self-determination.’”
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