Deir el-Balah, Gaza Strip, Palestine – Listening to the radio a few days ago outside the tent he now has to call home, 77-year-old Mohammed al-Nabahin heard about an Israeli plan to establish a “voluntary” migration office for Palestinians in Gaza.
The news report gave al-Nabahin the details. An agency planned by Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, and approved by the cabinet. Its aim was to organise and secure the exit of Palestinians “wishing to migrate” to third countries. Palestinians returning to their original villages in historical Palestine was not mentioned.
The plan follows some similar suggestions by US President Donald Trump earlier this year.
“The idea is completely out of the question,” Mohammed said flatly.
“If they want to displace us voluntarily, then let them allow us to return to our lands in occupied Palestine, from which they expelled us!” he told Al Jazeera. “Why should we leave our country?”
Mohammed has already experienced being forced out of his home.
When Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza began 17 months ago, Mohammed was forced to flee and leave his home in central Gaza’s Bureij.
He still thinks living in a tent in Gaza is better than leaving.
“All of my children agree with me. They are all against leaving Gaza, no matter what happens,” Mohammed said.
Waiting for death
In the tent opposite, 47-year-old Salwa al-Masri is preparing food for her family, fanning the wood fire to keep it going.
She shares Mohammed’s disdain for the idea of leaving Gaza.
Her struggles in the war are the same as so many others in Gaza. Forced into displacement, she is barely able to find enough food to feed her family since Israel decided to block the entry of goods to Gaza.
She has to rely on foraging for edible plants like mallow and spinach, which grow wild nearby. The hunger, along with Israel’s bombs, has left her “waiting for death”.
But for Salwa, it’s that very suffering that means she can’t bear the idea of leaving.
“We’ve endured all this only to leave? That will never happen,” she said.
“We’ve lost everything. I lost my entire home in Beit Hanoun [in northern Gaza], and I have chosen to live the rest of my life as a displaced person in the south, enduring hardship and hunger, but I will not leave,” she added.
Salwa believes Israel is using the bombings and starvation to pressure people into leaving, waiting for desperation to build before offering “exit options”.
“Where would we go, wandering in foreign lands? Why is every option available, except for us staying?” she added.
Israel has recently killed all eight of Salwa’s sister’s children in a strike on Beit Hanoun.
“Do you think my sister, after such a loss, would choose to leave? Of course not,” she said.
Desperate to leave
Israel’s attempts to get Palestinians to leave Gaza have been denounced by human rights organisations as an attempt to ethnically cleanse the territory.
Palestinians already have a long experience of being displaced at the hands of Israel, starting in 1948 when at least 750,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from their homes and villages by Zionist militias to make way for the state of Israel to be declared.
Ethnic cleansing has repeatedly been brought up during Israel’s war on Gaza, under different guises – many Israelis see it as a goal of the war, hoping to extend the cleansing to include the occupied West Bank.
Israel’s war on Gaza has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, and with no end in sight, Israel is betting that thousands of Palestinians will be desperate to leave, even if they are unable to return.
And in Gaza, while many older Palestinians are determined to stay, many from the younger generations see no future for themselves in the enclave.
On a street corner, 25-year-old Mahmoud al-Rai is fixing kicycle tyres in a small makeshift workshop.
When told about the migration agency, which he had not heard of, Mahmoud responded with a wide smile: “Where do I sign up?”
“I want to leave Gaza as soon as possible,” he told Al Jazeera. “We are exhausted by the wars – no human being can endure what we go through here. There seems to be no end to this war and its tragedies. Every minute we live here is like dying.”
Mahmoud said he doesn’t care where he goes, and he doesn’t care that Israel would be facilitating his exit.
He added that he was not alone – many of his friends and peers share his desire to leave Gaza permanently.
“We all see that we have no future here. No life, no work, no education – only destruction, wars, and bloodshed,” said the young man, who helps support his family of 10, including his parents.
“Just open the crossings for migration and see how many people, especially the young ones, will leave Gaza immediately.”
