From October 2023 to January 2025, Benjamin Netanyahu managed to displace about 1.9 million Palestinians – almost all of the population of Gaza. He must be proud. The Israeli prime minister can now go down in the Guinness Book of Records as the man who single-handedly displaced the most people within the smallest territory.
I, myself, am one of these 1.9 million. I was displaced twice: the first time at the beginning of the genocidal war and then again a year later.
Many Palestinian families were displaced repeatedly, some 10 times or more.
It was a clear strategy by Netanyahu to divide us. The north was cut off from the south. “Northerners” were forcibly expelled to the south. Then “southerners” and the other displaced were forced to move to the centre.
But this was not enough for him. The Israeli prime minister authorised a large-scale campaign to wipe out housing across the Gaza Strip, especially in the north and south. He also ordered the blocking of humanitarian aid to starve us.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 92 percent of homes in the Gaza Strip, or about 436,000 structures, were destroyed or damaged as a result of the Israeli aggression. According to Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, the Israeli army has not stopped demolishing homes in Rafah throughout the ceasefire.
According to the World Food Programme, as of January, more than 2 million people were fully dependent on food assistance, and hundreds of thousands were facing “catastrophic levels of food insecurity”.
Netanyahu has now ordered all humanitarian aid to be cut off again and is planning to forcibly expel Palestinians from the north to the south once again.
His aim is clear: to tear apart communities, to separate and weaken us, to turn us against each other through extreme deprivation. But his strategy failed in the past 16 months, and it will fail again.
In the face of a genocidal war, the people of Gaza showed immense solidarity with each other. Whoever had a home standing would open it to shelter the displaced, including their families, friends, neighbours and even strangers. Whoever had some food would also share.
When we were under siege in our neighbourhood, Sheikh Radwan, in December 2023, we used to throw water bottles through the windows to our neighbour and his daughter to make sure they had something to drink. We also provided food to other people in need by throwing it over the wall separating our home from other homes.
During our second displacement, a friend of my father’s opened his home for us in the south, and we remained there for four months.
On January 15 when the ceasefire was announced, the people of Gaza won against Netanyahu and his strategy of “divide and rule”. Four days later, some of the displaced from Rafah were able to go back.
Then on January 27 came the “big return”. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians headed back to the north.
For the majority of the displaced, “return” meant discovering homelessness. People walked long distances on foot just to find their houses damaged or destroyed. The word we use to describe wrecked homes in Gaza right now is “biscuit” – a home smashed flat like a biscuit.
The homeless returnees had few options: to go to schools turned into shelters, to pitch a tent in open spaces or next to the rubble of their homes, or to try to repair any standing walls into a living space.
Families are suffering in the heavy rain, strong wind and cold. Many, while cleaning, repairing or searching in the rubble to find their belongings, have found the bodies of loved ones and dug them out to bury them.
But even in the harsh reality of homelessness, Palestinians still find solidarity.
People share what little they have of food, water and even space in overcrowded tents. Neighbours work together to repair broken walls and roofs. Some with half-damaged houses offer shelters to those in need. Volunteers initiate campaigns for distributing food and clothes to schools, shelters and tent camps.
Some youth gather daily to cook in communal kitchens, ensuring no one is left hungry. People provide emotional support through WhatsApp groups and mental health meetings. At night, families gather to share stories and comfort each other to reduce the loneliness.
The men of our neighbourhood made a schedule to help each other in making shelters in damaged houses. They helped us put up tarps and secure them with poles to the ground and mend walls in our damaged home. We helped others by providing electricity to power the equipment through our barely functioning solar panel.
“Home” is now what most people in Gaza long for. It is supposed to be a warm place of sweet memories you can escape to when the world becomes too much to bear. It is not supposed to be a tent, a school or a destroyed house.
But Palestinians have been here before. Three-quarters of the population of Gaza are refugees or descendants of refugees who lost their homes in the Nakba. My own ancestors were expelled from their homes in the town of al-Majdal.
What Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders like him seem not to understand is that Gaza is not just a place for us, it is our home.
However many times Israel cuts off aid and attacks, destroying homes and displacing people, we will rebuild, not by magic, but by our own solidarity, resilience and the world’s support.
The unity that has been passed from generation to generation has built a community that refuses to be erased. This is what will help Gaza rise again.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
