Gaza – At 80 years old, Abdel Wahed Ahmad relives the experience of the Nakba in 1948 when he was a six-year-old child. He and his family were forcibly displaced from their town of “Barbara” and set up life along with thousands of others in tents that with time turned into refugee camps in Gaza, managed by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). These tents were “temporary,” or so thought the generation of the Nakba, until they could return to the cities, towns, and villages they were expelled from amidst horrific massacres committed by “Zionist gangs.”
Decades later, these tents have evolved into eight refugee camps in the Gaza Strip, which currently faces a fierce war for the third consecutive month. The conflict has resulted in the displacement of 1.9 million Palestinians. Local and international organizations estimate that about 700,000 Palestinians have been displaced to the city of Rafah due to the Israeli airstrikes (Al Jazeera).
Local and international organizations estimate that the displaced due to the Israeli war represent 85% of the 2.3 million Palestinians living in the enclave. Over 70% of them come from refugee families, marking the largest forced displacement operation since the Nakba.
With irony and distress, Abdel Wahed tells Al Jazeera, “We used to demand the right of return to Barbara, and now we demand the right of return to Jabalia and Beit Lahia.” In a small, modest tent shaken by the wind, Abdel Wahed spends most of his time praying and eating the little available food, wandering his gaze around the place that has turned into a camp filled with memories, wondering, “Where will they displace us after Rafah?”
A few dozen tents established by displaced persons from northern parts of the enclave sit in the Tal al-Sultan neighborhood adjacent to the border with Egypt. This octogenarian refugee fears that the massacres Israel is committing will force them to move to Sinai.
Many share this fear as the Palestinian city of Rafah, bordered by its Egyptian sister city, experiences severe overcrowding due to widespread waves of displacement. Local authorities have estimated the number to be around 700,000 displaced people, residing in shelters and in the homes of relatives and friends.
However, thousands like Abdel Wahed and his family have had no choice but to set up tents on vacant land in the west of the city, lacking even the most basic essentials for living.
The displaced Umm Shafiq anticipates an end to the ordeal of displacement and returning to her home in the town of Beit Lahia in northern Gaza (Al Jazeera).
Abdel Wahed still harbors many painful memories, saying, “This is how it started,” gesturing with his hands towards the neighbouring tents, and continues, “What comes after this, will we settle here, or will Israel chase us with killing and displace us out of the country?”
The Israeli army pursued displaced persons from Khan Yunis and northern areas of the enclave to Rafah with killings, committing horrifying massacres with airstrikes targeting residential homes sheltering displaced families. Other targets, such as the home of the Abu Dabaan family in the Shaboura refugee camp, resulted in the martyrdom and injury of dozens.
Local authorities in Gaza estimate that more than 45% of the victims of the Israeli airstrikes in the south of the enclave, including Rafah, are among the displaced, who have fled their homes and residential areas from Gaza City and the north, seeking refuge in the southern regions claimed by the occupation army as “safe.”
Umm Shafiq, alias Amal Abdullah, complains about the tight conditions in her tent next to Abdel Wahed, telling Al Jazeera, “We were displaced from Beit Lahia to Khan Yunis and from there to Rafah, and then where will they displace us to?” Her thirty-year-old son Tawfiq, cradling his only daughter Amal, whom he had after ten years of marriage, responds, “To Sinai,” as he gestures towards the border with Egypt.
Tawfiq tells Al Jazeera, “Our homes were destroyed in Beit Lahia, and we are no longer able to think about anything. Now all I care about is my daughter’s safety.” His fifty-year-old mother only wishes to return to Beit Lahia and rebuild her destroyed home, emphasizing, “If we leave our land, we will never return to it, just like what happened in ’48.”
António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, warned last Sunday in Qatar of increasing pressures for mass displacement to Egypt. Philippe Lazzarini, the Commissioner-General of UNRWA, accused Israel in an article published by the American newspaper “Los Angeles Times” of paving the way for the mass expulsion of Gaza’s residents to Egypt across the border, highlighting the escalating humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the concentration of displaced civilians fleeing the Israeli bombing and ground war near the borders in the north and then the south. He confirmed that “the developments we are witnessing point to attempts to transfer Palestinians to Egypt.”
While Israeli political and military circles have consistently denied any plans to move Gaza’s residents to Egypt, members of the government have publicly supported the idea of voluntary departure of Palestinians from the enclave. Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich commented on Facebook, “Welcome to the voluntary migration of Arabs from Gaza to countries around the world.” Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel has called for the encouragement of “voluntary resettlement of Palestinians from Gaza outside the enclave for humanitarian reasons.”
Former Israeli officials estimated in television interviews that Egypt could establish large tent cities in Sinai’s desert with international funding.
Rami Abdo, Director of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, states to Al Jazeera that under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, an occupying state’s deportation or transfer of all or part of the population of the occupied land, within or outside, constitutes a war crime in international armed conflicts. What is happening in Gaza today is not a war in the traditional sense as much as it is a military assault in which Israel commits the crime of forced displacement and genocide without the presence of compelling military reasons, according to Abdo.
He believes that the coercion for Gaza’s civilian population to displace is a course of action that reflects Israel’s intention to move people out of the enclave using continuous bombing and a starvation policy against the major human mass currently in Rafah—actions that may push this group to seek places offering security and the minimum requirements for life.
Hossam Al-Dajani, a professor of political science, thinks that Israel achieves three goals by pushing people to the far south towards Rafah city. The first relates to the ease of implementing the forced displacement scenario for residents towards Sinai, especially with the intensification of collective punishment, lack of food security, and crimes of genocide. The second goal, Al-Dajani says to Al Jazeera, is to showcase the occupation’s concern for civilians and responsiveness to international calls, as part of a deception policy to the world, since there are no safe areas along Gaza’s borders. The third goal, he explains, is to reduce the demographic mass in conflict zones to implement the scorched earth policy.
Al-Dajani is convinced that Israel will not succeed in its plots and endeavors, asserting that all indicators point to transformations in the regional and global scene, and within the operational framework inside Gaza, such as the leaked Israeli army casualties to stimulate internal Israeli opposition against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Additionally, he cites the ongoing movement within Western countries, economic boycotts, and other factors, all of which hasten the end of the war and Israel’s defeat.
