U.S. President Donald Trump’s pitch to take ownership of the Gaza Strip and redevelop it after permanently displacing its residents was met with unified anger and concern from Palestinians in Gaza Wednesday.
Trump raised the prospect of relocating more than two million Palestinians living there during a visit to Washington Tuesday by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He suggested it had become uninhabitable after nearly 16 months of war between Israel and Hamas.
Hanan Al-Shennawi said that while there is instability and an unclear future for Palestinians who remain in Gaza, they refuse to leave their land.
“We will not allow this because this is our country and our land. We’re going to remain steadfast here … and we’re not going to hand over this land,” said Al-Shennawi, 22, from west of Gaza City.
Al-Shennawi said she does not expect Arab countries to stand behind Palestinians in rejecting the plan, which, if enforced, would breach international law.
“The Arab nations didn’t stand with us from the beginning of the war, so they are not going to come stand with us now at the end of it and in the face of Trump,” she told CBC freelance videographer Mohamed El Saife on Wednesday.
“They allowed [Israel] to displace us from the north to the south, so it’s normal for them to displace us outside of the Gaza Strip.”
Trump’s latest comments to turn Gaza into a “Riviera of the Middle East” after resettling Palestinians elsewhere has shattered U.S. policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and sparked widespread condemnation.
Concerns for forced displacement
Mohammed Abu Musa, 26, said he worries Trump’s plan for Gaza will progress and he and his family will be forced to seek refuge in other countries.
“The development in Gaza won’t be for its residents, of course,” Abu Musa said. “Why force out its residents for the development? Let the residents benefit from it.
“The [Gaza] Strip is the only place that is clear from the [Israeli] occupation. These 360 [square] kilometres. If [it] no longer remains, then the Palestinian cause will fall apart,” he said.
People in northern Gaza reacted Wednesday to President Donald Trump’s comment that the U.S. should ‘take over’ the Gaza Strip.
He called on other Arab nations to reject Trump’s plan, adding that if “we’re stabbed, then they’re stabbed as well.”
Trump has previously talked about relocating the Palestinian population of Gaza to other countries and repeatedly called Gaza a “demolition site.”
“We just clean out that whole thing,” Trump reportedly told reporters on Air Force One on Jan. 25.
‘Nothing but pressure’
Others, meanwhile, did not think Trump’s words carried any weight.
Taher Al-Najjar, 30, said Trump’s plan is “all nonsense” and does not expect it to affect Palestinians.
“These are just empty words. We were under war for 15 [months] and bombing and death and the people were not displaced.… There is nothing that will displace us,” Al-Najjar said.
“If we are displaced then there is no Palestinian cause because we will be refugees.”
Abdullah Al-Ghafri, 27, echoed that sentiment.
“It’s nothing but pressure,” Al-Ghafri said.
During a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, U.S. President Donald Trump said he wants to see the U.S. own the Gaza Strip, develop it into the ‘Riviera of the Middle East’ and permanently relocate the Palestinians who live there.
He said that Palestinian’s ties to their land will not allow them to give it up for any reason, pointing to how residents from northern Gaza returned to their homes from the south as soon as they were allowed.
“People left their things, their blankets, everything they collected for the last year…. They left it in the south and returned to the north,” he said.
“This shows the attachment to the land. A person is attached to his land, went home alone and returned to his land to start from scratch.”
Forced deportation breaches international law
On Wednesday, the UN Human Rights Office (UNHR) said any forcible transfer in or deportation of people from occupied territory breaches international law.
“It is crucial that we move towards the next phase of the ceasefire, to release all hostages and arbitrarily detained prisoners, end the war and reconstruct Gaza, with full respect for international humanitarian law and international human rights law,” the UNHR said in a statement.
“Any forcible transfer in or deportation of people from occupied territory is strictly prohibited,” it said.
Hala Abu Dabaa said Palestinians will remain in Gaza and refuse to leave.
“We choose to stay here until [our] last breath. This is our country and we can’t leave it [under any] circumstances,” the 26-year-old said.
“He should know that we will not leave our country and he should delete this idea out of his mind.”
Abu Ahmed Al-Daour, 44, said he felt “helpless” after learning about Trump’s plan.
“We reject this decision … after almost 60,000 [people] martyred and injured and emergency workers, now they want to displace us,” he said.
The initial six-week truce, agreed with Egyptian and Qatari mediators and backed by the U.S., has remained largely intact but prospects for a durable settlement are unclear.
More than 47,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel in the 15-month war, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. Due to the chaos of war, verifying the exact number of casualties has been challenging and subject to scrutiny. The Palestinian Civil Defence has said it is searching for roughly 10,000 bodies believed to be remaining under the rubble.
The coastal enclave has been largely demolished by Israel’s military following the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. That assault killed 1,200 people with around 250 hostages taken into Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
