[News] Palestinians reject Trump’s vision for Gaza: ‘If they offered me an entire city instead of the rubble of

[Anti-Imperialist News]

mondoweiss.net
<https://mondoweiss.net/2025/02/palestinians-reject-trumps-vision-for-gaza-if-they-offered-me-an-entire-city-instead-of-the-rubble-of-my-home-i-would-not-accept-it/?ml_recipient=145591501419710353&ml_link=145591457695139057&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2025-02-06&utm_campaign=Daily+Headlines+RSS+Automation>
Palestinians reject Trump’s vision for Gaza: ‘If they offered me an entire
city instead of the rubble of
Tareq S. Hajjaj
February 5, 2025
------------------------------
[image: 030225_Gaza_OSH_0051-1024x683.jpg]

On Monday, President Donald Trump told reporters that the U.S. would take
over Gaza and permanently relocate its Palestinian residents
<https://mondoweiss.net/2025/02/trump-reiterates-plan-to-remove-palestinians-from-gaza-following-netanyahu-meeting-at-white-house/>
to neighboring countries like Egypt and Jordan. Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu, the man responsible for Gaza’s devastation, sat beside
him and grinned as Trump answered a reporter about whether Palestinians
would be allowed to return: “Why would they want to return? The place has
been hell.”

But after 15 months of displacement, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians
have already made their long-awaited return to their homes in northern
Gaza. Most of them had only rubble to go back to, but they insisted on
making the long trek on foot, many of them vowing never to leave again.
Residents arriving in the north told *Mondoweiss *they were fully aware
that barely any structure remained intact in northern Gaza and expected to
enter into a new chapter of suffering. They also said that they would not
trade what remained of their homes for anything Trump had to offer.

“The clear goal of this war is to make as many Palestinians as possible in
Gaza homeless, because this destruction is deliberate and planned,” Alaa
Subaih, a resident of the Shuja’iyya neighborhood in eastern Gaza City,
told *Mondoweiss*. “The aim is to make us suffer from lack of shelter so
that we leave our country and move.”

In direct response to Trump’s statements, Subaih said, “Even if this land
is hell, it is my land. I do not want to live elsewhere. I returned to
revive and rebuild it.”

“If the American president wants to help Israel, the best solution for him
is to take all the Israelis to his country, America, not to transfer the
owners of the land. We are attached to our land and will not go to any
other country. Our country, Palestine, is the most beautiful country on
earth,” Subaih added.
[image: Newly erected tents in the al-Shujai'yya neighborhood in Gaza City,
February 4, 2025. (Photo: Omar Ashtawy/APA Images)]Newly erected tents in
the al-Shujai’yya neighborhood in Gaza City, February 4, 2025. (Photo: Omar
Ashtawy/APA Images) ‘They returned us to Gaza, but they did not return Gaza
to us’

In al-Shuja’iyya, residents are cut off from electricity, water, sewage,
and internet lines. Most families have to walk over half a kilometer
carrying empty plastic gallons so that they can fill them up at the nearest
water supply point, as water trucks cannot reach most areas that have not
been cleared of rubble.

According to Gaza’s Government Media Office, which previously announced
that the Gaza Strip was classified as a disaster area, the Israeli
occupation is delaying the implementation of the agreed-upon stipulations
of the ceasefire that would see the influx of aid and humanitarian relief
to Gaza as part of the ongoing first phase of the ceasefire agreement.

The statement also provided an overview of the scale of the destruction
Israel caused in Gaza over the past 15 months, stating that 450,000 housing
units were damaged or destroyed — 170,000 of them were “completely
destroyed,” 80,000 were “severely damaged,” and 200,000 were “partially
damaged.”

“This is not a livable city,” Subaih said after spending nearly a week
camped out beside the destroyed remains of his house. “It’s just heaps upon
heaps of rubble. We can’t get any basic necessities; there is no water, no
housing. It’s as if the war only ended to open a new one.”

But this doesn’t mean he wants to leave it.

“When a city is destroyed, its people return to rebuild it; they do not
leave it. If Trump wants to give me a castle in Egypt or Jordan, or even in
America, I would not replace it with the rubble of my home.”
Alaa Subaih

“When a city is destroyed, its people return to it to rebuild; they do not
leave it,” Subaih said, in response to the U.S. president’s vision for
forcing Palestinians to resettle outside of Gaza. “If Trump wants to give
me a castle in Egypt or Jordan, or even in America, I would not replace it
with the rubble of my home,” he added.

Despite the ubiquitous destruction, signs of life are beginning to return
to the area. Near Subaih’s residence in al-Shuja’iyya is Omar al-Mukhtar
Street, a once-bustling market in Gaza City adjacent to several historic
sites, including the Zawiya Market, the Great Omari Mosque, and the
Qaysariya Market. All of them were bombed during the war, but people have
now revived these areas and cleared them of debris as best they could. The
markets offer a variety of foods, such as vegetables, fruits, dairy, canned
foods, and clothes. Prices are still high compared to their prewar levels,
but they have begun to go down.

Residents have also organized themselves into groups of volunteers and
worked on different sections of neighborhoods to manually clear roads of
the rubble. Any serious rehabilitation of Gaza’s urban spaces must await
the entry of construction materials and equipment, including cement, iron,
bulldozers, trucks, and fuel needed to operate them.

Subaih said that the difficulties Gazans continue to endure deprive them of
the joy of returning to their homes. Pointing to the side of the street
where his home used to be and where thirty of his relatives and neighbors
were killed, he said, “They returned us to Gaza, but they did not return
Gaza to us.”
*‘We will remain here above the rubble until we rebuild it’*

In Jabalia refugee camp, residents returned to neighborhoods that were
leveled entirely. Jabalia was the hardest hit by Israel’s relentless
bombardment and demolition campaign throughout the implementation of what
was known as the “Generals’ Plan
<https://mondoweiss.net/2024/10/what-is-the-generals-plan-israels-ongoing-ethnic-cleansing-of-northern-gaza-explained/>”
— the failed effort to empty north Gaza of its people during the four
months before the ceasefire took effect. Like in Gaza City, families in
Jabalia have already begun to remove the rubble and set up camp beside
their destroyed homes.

Sanaa Mousa, 29, returned to her home in Jabalia after being displaced to
Gaza City for the past four months. The residential block she lived in was
completely blown up.

“This massive destruction is meant to force us to leave our country,” Mousa
told *Mondoweiss*. “But we will overcome. We’ll recover and rebuild our
homes and celebrate our survival. We’re staying here on our land.”

Mousa and her family tried to find shelter upon their return, but there was
no standing structure they could use in the area. This prompted the family
to set up a makeshift tent out of nylon tarps, which has become a common
sight in Gaza as people camp beside their destroyed homes.

“Life is difficult,” Mousa explained. “We cannot get the minimum
requirements for survival and safety. There are no hospitals. Some food is
available in the market, but we do not know where and how to cook it. There
is nothing here; we cannot get water, and there is no sewage drainage. It
is a difficult life, but we will get through it.”

Speaking in Jabalia, Sanaa Mousa said Trump wasn’t the first Westerner with
no connection to the land to try to decide its people’s fate. “It’s like
the Balfour Declaration,” she explains. “Trump wants to uproot us for the
sake of an occupier.”

In response to Trump’s comments, Mousa said that she endured all manner of
suffering just to be able to return to her home. “It was the happiest
moment of my life, even if my home was destroyed,” she said, adding that
she wanted to embrace every grain of sand in Jabalia. She added that Trump
wasn’t the first Westerner with no connection to the land to try to decide
its people’s fate. “It’s like the Balfour Declaration,” she explains.
“Trump wants to uproot us for the sake of an occupier.”

But Mousa believes that no such plan will succeed. “We will remain here
above the rubble until we rebuild it,” she says. “Nothing worse can happen
than the war of extermination we have already experienced, and even it did
not succeed in removing us from our land.”

“If they offered me an entire city instead of the rubble of my home, I
would not accept it,” Mousa added emphatically. “Homelands cannot be
replaced. Homelands are like your blood and soul…Palestine is our land and
our country, and we will not leave it under any pressure or plans.”
------------------------------


*Tareq S. Hajjaj *Tareq S. Hajjaj is the Mondoweiss Gaza Correspondent, and
a member of the Palestinian Writers Union. Follow him on Twitter at
@Tareqshajjaj <https://twitter.com/Tareqshajjaj>.
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