There is no water and electricity in the north of the Gaza Strip. In addition, there are so many rubble that there is badly room to arm tents in various places.
However, more than half a million Palestinians returned to the area last week, according to the local government. Most are determined to stay and rebuild – even after the idea of US President Donald Trump that they leave the region and that a “riviera” can be built in the Middle East.
“I don’t think people should go back to Gaza,” the Republican said during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday.
“Why would they want to come back? The place has been hell, ”he added. It was the second time in just over a week that Trump said the Palestinians should leave Gaza.
– and was received with disbelief and indignation among the residents of Gaza.
The Gaza Government Press Office, run by Hamas, said that about 500,000 paid Palestinians – almost a quarter of the Enclave population – made a trip back to the north in the first 72 hours after Israeli forces started to allow their return.
Amir Karaja scored the CNN that he would “prefer to eat the rubble” than to be forced to leave his homeland.
“We will firm aqui”, observou karaja CNN This Wednesday, as he worked on his home in the Nusasto Campo in downtown Gaza. The building resembles a doll house after the entire front wall collapsed and exposed the damaged interior.
“This is our land, and we are the honest and true owners of the earth. I will not be displaced. Nor [Trump]no one else can get us out of Gaza, ”he said.
Stop in the middle of your house strongly damaged nearby, Iyam Jahjouh said to CNN that she would not consider moving either.
“We will not leave our lands or houses, despite the great destruction and everything that happened in Gaza, we are here and we will remain here,” he said.
The roof and several walls of her house were demolished, leaving Jahjouh with only one room covered with a makeshift roof. However, in this neighborhood, this house is among the least destroyed.
“Why should I leave my country? Do you want to send me to Egypt or Jordan? No, we will not accept, we will set up a tent and no matter what you do, we will not leave our country. We don’t give the threats to Trump or Netanyahu a damn, ”he said.
“We prefer Gaza’s hell than the paradise of another country”
Selling vegetables in a market in Khan Younis, a city that was strongly damaged by Israeli bombing, Ahmad Safi pointed out that it is “impossible” to transfer people out of Gaza.
“We live under bombing for a year and a half. After all this suffering, hunger, bombing and death, we will not leave Gaza easily. We prefer Gaza’s hell than the paradise of any other country… If they give us all the money in the world, we will not leave this land, ”he noted.
Awatef Abu Sitta expressed feelings similar to CNN: “All the houses of our children have been demolished and our house is a little destroyed. The rain enters the house, the cold is coming, and we will happen what happens, even if we are on the tent, even if they give us castles and villages, we will not leave our lands. ”
Refusing a repetition of “nakba”
About 70% of the 2.1 million residents of the Gaza Strip are recorded by the UN as refugees, many of whom are descendants of Palestinians who were moved in 1948, when about 700,000 Palestinians were expelled or forced to flee their homes. during the creation of Israel.
They were prevented from returning to their ancestral homes in what Israel is today. The Arabs refer to the event as the “Nakba” (catastrophe).
During Nakba, many Palestinians were led to believe that their displacement was temporary and that they would be allowed to return home when the war was over. But it never happened.
The determination that this event does not repeat itself, regardless of current difficulties, was common among the dozens of people with whom CNN He spoke in Gaza this Wednesday and last week.
Many celebrated their return home with joy despite widespread destruction. Saleh al-Sawble, from Jabalya, in northern Gaza, told the CNN That Palestinians are people who refuse to give up.
“I was displaced 12 times,” Al-Sawble told CNN Last week while waiting to make the trip to the north.
“We went to a place, they [israelenses] They told us it would be bombarded. We went to another; They said it would be bombarded. We were moving from one place to another. We are so exhausted. There is nothing like being back home. It’s all we want, ”he said.
“I’m not leaving,” he said, in response to the US President’s comments. “Please send this message to Trump: this is the last thought that would go through our head,” he warned.
Last month, Trump suggested that both Jordan and Egypt should shelter Palestinians from Gaza, saying that potential housing “could be temporary” or “could be long term.”
On Tuesday, he commented that some Palestinians could return to Gaza in the future. He imagined “the people of the world living” in what he said it would be “an international and unbelievable place.”
Asked if the Palestinians would be living in Gaza, he added: “Palestinians too. Palestinians will live there. Many people will live there. ”
Awni Al Wadia, who was forced to flee her home in northern Gaza last year, noted that the collective memory of the events of 1948 is one of the reasons why he will not leave the territory.
“These comments were made in the past. In 1967 (the Arab-Israeli War), when they moved the Palestinians, they said it was temporary, only until the situation calm down. And so far, they have not returned. They remained displaced, ”he argued to CNN.
Like tens of thousands of others, Al Wadia ran to return north of Gaza as soon as she became possible.
