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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="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">mondoweiss.net</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Palestinians reject Trump’s vision for Gaza: ‘If they offered me an entire city instead of the rubble of</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Tareq S. Hajjaj</div>
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<div class="gmail-reader-estimated-time" dir="ltr">February 5, 2025</div>
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<img src="cid:ii_m6turu5d0" alt="030225_Gaza_OSH_0051-1024x683.jpg" width="394" height="263"><br><br><p>On Monday, President Donald Trump <a href="https://mondoweiss.net/2025/02/trump-reiterates-plan-to-remove-palestinians-from-gaza-following-netanyahu-meeting-at-white-house/">told reporters that the U.S. would take over Gaza and permanently relocate its Palestinian residents</a>
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.” </p>
<p>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 <em>Mondoweiss </em>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.</p>
<p>“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 <em>Mondoweiss</em>. “The aim is to make us suffer from lack of shelter so that we leave our country and move.”</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<img width="394" height="263" src="https://mondoweiss.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/040225_Gaza_OSH_1_005-1024x683.jpg" alt="Newly erected tents in the al-Shujai'yya neighborhood in Gaza City, February 4, 2025. (Photo: Omar Ashtawy/APA Images)" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 25px;">Newly erected tents in the al-Shujai’yya neighborhood in Gaza City, February 4, 2025. (Photo: Omar Ashtawy/APA Images)
<h2>‘They returned us to Gaza, but they did not return Gaza to us’</h2>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>But this doesn’t mean he wants to leave it.</p>
<blockquote><p>“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.”</p><cite>Alaa Subaih</cite></blockquote>
<p>“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. </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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.”</p>
<h2><strong>‘We will remain here above the rubble until we rebuild it’</strong></h2>
<p>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 “<a href="https://mondoweiss.net/2024/10/what-is-the-generals-plan-israels-ongoing-ethnic-cleansing-of-northern-gaza-explained/">Generals’ Plan</a>”
— 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“This massive destruction is meant to force us to leave our country,” Mousa told <em>Mondoweiss</em>. “But we will overcome. We’ll recover and rebuild our homes and celebrate our survival. We’re staying here on our land.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<blockquote><p>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.”</p></blockquote>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Tareq S. Hajjaj <br></strong>Tareq S. Hajjaj is the Mondoweiss Gaza Correspondent, and a member of the Palestinian Writers Union. Follow him on Twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/Tareqshajjaj">@Tareqshajjaj</a>.</p>
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