Home is the ultimate source of security, warmth and comfort in anyone’s life — a space that embodies freedom, love, and all the things that make life meaningful.
My home in the Tal al Al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City, where I lived with my family for 18 years, provided me with that sense of tranquility, one that I’m unsure I’ll ever experience again. It was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in fall 2023 shortly before we were driven out of Gaza City. I never imagined that I would find myself consumed by fear, cold and countless disappointments and tragedies until that moment.
Even after the ceasefire came into effect last month, the sense of despair has only grown stronger. The specter of violent death may have passed for the time being, but now my family and I face the greatest fear of any Palestinian: being displaced. Not just out of Gaza City but outside of our homeland entirely, prevented from returning.
President Trump announced his plan to forcibly transfer — ethnically cleanse — Palestinians out of Gaza during his recent meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and again with King Abdullah of Jordan, eliciting a combination of shock and ridicule among Palestinians here. Even if Trump doesn’t order American soldiers to occupy and expel us, as he first said he would, he has effectively given Israel approval to do so.
Two days after Trump and Netanyahu met, Israel’s defense minister ordered the military to prepare plans to displace Palestinians out of Gaza, and last week he declared Israel is ready to implement Trump’s plan if the ceasefire breaks down.
Trump completely ignores the reality that Palestinians are individuals with their own lives, histories, futures and deep connections to their homes and their land. Does he see us only as pawns in a game of chess or a real estate deal? Knowingly or not, his plan would fulfill the Israeli right’s longtime ambitions to get rid of Palestinians in Gaza, justifying our displacement from our homeland under the sinister false pretext that it will bring peace to the Middle East.
My grandparents were driven from their homes in the village of Al-Suwafir Al-sharqiya in 1948 during the mass expulsion of Palestinians that was carried out during Israel’s founding (known to Palestinians as the Nakba, or “catastrophe”). They sought refuge in Gaza. They took the key to their home with them, leaving everything they knew behind, not realizing they would never return. Just like our grandparents, we locked our door and moved south. Throughout the months of the war, we dreamed of returning home. Now, we dream of rebuilding it.
Although Palestinians in Gaza have been living under a violent Israeli military occupation and punitive siege for decades, enduring a life far from normalcy, I foolishly believed the horrors of the Nakba and terms like “displacement” and “refugee” would never be my lived experience, as it was for my grandparents. I now realize how wrong I was.
History is repeating itself, but in an even more disturbing way. The horrors we have experienced have surpassed anything I had ever imagined, and now it is not only Israel threatening us with expulsion but the president of the United States.
My family and I have spent our lives striving to build a peaceful and secure life in Gaza, only to realize that achieving such a dream is, in fact, impossible under Israel’s domination and control.
Within the walls of our home, the echoes of our laughter and conversations filled every corner. Everything that embodied our spirit was beautiful and full of warmth. Now, it lies buried under the rubble. That is what Israel has wrought in this war.
Happiness and joy were once a natural part of my life, things I experienced and that became a part of me, all within the walls of our home. Now, I find myself striving for fleeting moments of happiness, but they are tainted—filled with setbacks and the scars of homelessness.
More than 15 months have passed since the horrors of this war began, and as I gaze at the key to our home in Tal Al-Hawa, memories of everything my family and I endured fill my mind. I find myself caught between a beautiful past, a painful present and an unknown future.
In the end, if the international community does not act immediately to stop Israel and Trump from carrying out their plans for us, we will be left with two options: death or displacement.
Aya Al-Hattab is a writer and translator in Gaza.
