From October 2023 to January 2025, Benjamin Netanyahu managed to move around 1.9 million Palestinians – almost the entire population of Gaza. He must be proud. The Israeli Prime Minister can now fall into the book of Guinness documents while the man who alone has moved the most people from the smallest territory.
Myself, I am one of these 1.9 million. I was moved twice: the first time at the start of the genocidal war, then a year later.
Many Palestinian families have been moved several times, about 10 times or more.
It was a clear strategy of Netanyahu to divide us. The north was cut from the south. The “inhabitants of the North” were forcibly expelled towards the south. Then, the “southerners” and the others were moved were forced to move to the center.
But it was not enough for him. The Israeli Prime Minister has authorized a large -scale campaign to eliminate housing through the Gaza Strip, especially in the North and the South. He also ordered the blocking of humanitarian aid to starve us.
According to the United Nations Bureau for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 92% of houses in the Gaza Strip, or approximately 436,000 structures, were destroyed or damaged following the Israeli aggression. According to the Human Rights Center in Al Mezan, the Israeli army has not stopped demolishing houses in Rafah throughout the ceasefire.
According to the World Food Program, in January, more than 2 million people were fully dependent on food aid, and hundreds of thousands were faced with “catastrophic levels of food insecurity”.
Netanyahu has now ordered the cut of all humanitarian aid and plans to expel the Palestinians from north to south again.
Its objective is clear: to tear the communities, to separate us and weaken us, to return to each other by an extreme deprivation. But her strategy has failed in the last 16 months, and it will fail again.
Faced with a genocidal war, the inhabitants of Gaza showed immense solidarity with each other. Whoever had a standing house would open it to house the displaced, including their families, friends, neighbors and even foreigners. Whoever had food would also share.
When we were siege in our neighborhood, Sheikh Radwan, in December 2023, we used to throw bottles of water through the windows of our neighbor and his daughter to make sure that they had something to drink. We have also provided food to other people in need by throwing it on the wall separating our house from other houses.
During our second trip, a friend of my father opened his house in the south, and we stayed there for four months.
On January 15, when the ceasefire was announced, the people of Gaza won Netanyahu and their strategy to “divide and rule”. Four days later, some of Rafah’s moved were able to go back.
January 27 came the “high return”. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians returned to the north.
For the majority of displaced people, the “return” meant discovering homelessness. People were walking walk away just to find their homes damaged or destroyed. The word we use to describe the nautical houses in Gaza at the moment is “cookie” – a broken house flat like a cookie.
The homeless returned had few options: to go to schools transformed into shelters, to launch a tent in open spaces or next to the rubble of their houses, or to try to repair the standing walls in a living space.
Families suffer under the heavy rains, the strong wind and the cold. Many, during cleaning, repair or research in the rubble to find their personal effects, found the bodies of their loved ones and dug them to bury them.
But even in the harsh reality of homelessness, Palestinians always find solidarity.
People share the little that they have food, water and even space in overcrowded tents. The neighbors work together to repair the broken walls and roofs. Some with half damage houses offer shelters to those who need them. Volunteers are launching campaigns to distribute food and clothing to schools, shelters and tent camps.
Some young people meet daily to cook in municipal kitchens, ensuring that no one is hungry. People provide emotional support through WhatsApp groups and mental health meetings. At night, families come together to share stories and comfort each other to reduce loneliness.
The men in our neighborhood have made a schedule to help each other in damaged houses. They helped us put tarpaulins and fix them with posts on the floor and repair the walls in our damaged house. We have helped others by providing electricity to power the equipment via our barely functional solar panel.
“Home” is now what most people in Gaza are looking for. It is supposed to be a warm place of sweet memories that you can escape when the world becomes too much to wear. It is not supposed to be a destroyed tent, school or house.
But the Palestinians have already been here. Three -quarters of the Gaza population are refugees or descendants of refugees who have lost their house in the Nakba. My own ancestors were expelled from their houses in the city of Al-Majdal.
What Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders like him seem to not understand is that Gaza is not only a place for us, it is our house.
However, on several occasions Israel reduces help and attacks, destroying houses and moving people, we will rebuild, not by magic, but by our own solidarity, our resilience and the support of the world.
The unit which has been transmitted from generation to generation has built a community that refuses to be erased. This is what will help Gaza get up again.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Tel Aviv Tribune.
