Mansour Abo Kareem stood in front of piles of rubble where his home used to be and condemned U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats to permanently expel all Palestinian from Gaza. “I am against migrating,” he said, staring into his nephew’s camera. “This is our land and we want to live in peace.”
He was responding to Trump’s suggestion at a White House press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahuthat the U.S. should take over the Gaza Strip and displace Palestinian residents to “other countries of interest with humanitarian hearts,” such as Jordan and Egypt.
“We have not yet emerged from the mass war of extermination waged by Israel and Trump comes and says that he wants the entire population to leave to unknown places,” said Abo Kareem, a 44-year-old professor and political researcher who spends his days recording lectures for students remotely and writing articles and political papers about the war. He is currently living in a tent in central Gaza.
Over the last year, he suffered from malnutrition, a prostate infection, and back pain from transporting water over long distances. Even still, he can’t imagine leaving Gaza. “I do not want to leave here. I have built my family and I want to stay. Going out and residing in another country will mean starting from scratch in forming social relationships and work relationships, and this is very difficult,” he wrote in a WhatsApp message to The Intercept.
The Trump administration has tried to walk back the president’s remarks, in which he stated it would be better for Palestinians to “occupy all of a beautiful area with homes and safety, and they can live out their lives in peace and harmony, instead of having to go back and do it again.”
But Palestinians in Gaza and those forcibly displaced by Israel’s 16-month war reacted with anger — fearing that Trump’s plan amounts to ethnic cleansing and that they will not be allowed to remain in or return to their homeland. Despite losing homes and loved ones, those who spoke with The Intercept had no interest in a long-term future outside of Gaza.
“He acts as if he owns Gaza, but I can say directly to him: You don’t own Gaza, Donald Trump. You don’t own Gazans and you have no right to decide what Gazans shall do,” said Noor Yacoubi, a 27-year-old who stayed in North Gaza with her husband and infant daughter during the war. A lack of food meant she lost almost 20 kilograms and had trouble breastfeeding. Most of her family evacuated to the south, and eventually to Egypt.
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