27 March 2025
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.
Source: Aljazeera
