My family and I are victims of this bloody conflict. Please help us find a safe way out of Gaza and save my family. Please share this message.
This short plea was written on a battered phone from a makeshift tent in one of Gaza’s displacement camps — by someone whose only wish is to survive with his family the hell unleashed on Gaza since October 7. This is not an isolated cry or an exception; it echoes the collective desperation of those stripped of every basic condition for dignified life. It is a snapshot of what Gaza’s people have been reduced to — not seeking a dignified life anymore, but clinging to any form of life at all, even if it’s just survival beneath the rubble. According to the latest poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, nearly half of Gaza’s population is now willing to apply to Israel for help in emigrating to other countries through Israeli-controlled ports and airports.
For months, Gaza has been transformed into a place unfit for human life — not by accident, but through deliberate Israeli policy. The Israeli military and government have systematically made the Strip a hellscape to push people toward one option: leaving. No electricity. No water. No medicine. Not even a proper burial for the dead. And in the heart of this devastation, so-called “voluntary migration” plans promoted by the Israeli government are beginning to surface — built not on hope, but on despair. The question we must ask is a moral one: does the desire to survive justify uprooting an entire people from their homeland? Can the will to live be weaponized to legitimize ethnic cleansing?
Gaza, after 19 months of war, is unlivable. It is an open space for slow death: no water, no power, no shelter. Hospitals have been destroyed or shut down. Schools have become mass graves. Homes have been flattened or reduced to debris. Even life itself is collapsing.
In this shattered reality, the idea of “individual salvation” has emerged — each person trying to save themselves. The collective national project has fractured. Not because the people gave up, but because they have no choices left. Here lies the true ethical catastrophe: when the instinct to survive becomes evidence in the hands of those planning your permanent displacement. The Israeli government’s policy banks on this — on making Gaza so unbearable that escape feels like mercy.
A friend from Gaza once told me during a conversation about the daily agony and what might come after the war: “I don’t care what happens next. The moment the crossings open, I’m leaving.” He told me that seeing his son hungry, thirsty, cold, or exposed in a flimsy tent shattered any political vision. “I just want my children to live without hunger, without fear of being blown to pieces.”
In the midst of this humanitarian collapse, members of Netanyahu’s government — and now Netanyahu himself — have floated plans to “resettle” Gaza’s population in third countries. These aren’t wild fantasies. They are deliberate policies based on one idea: Gaza is beyond saving, so empty it. Turn the Nakba into a new permanent reality.
The Israeli government is creating every condition to make flight the only rational option: blocking aid, destroying infrastructure, targeting civilian areas, and making life impossible. It’s coercion without the name—a soft expulsion disguised as choice.
And now the Israeli government points to Gazans’ desperate cries for escape as proof that they “want to leave.” Meanwhile, it declares that if they do leave, they cannot return. In other words, their options are reduced to either living in misery or leaving forever. This is not voluntary migration. It is ethnic cleansing.
While all this unfolds and Gaza is butchered daily, Hamas stands idle — issuing hollow statements as people protest in the streets, demanding Hamas disarm, release hostages, and stop the daily death to save what’s left of Gaza. Instead, Hamas merely calls on the international community to stop the displacement plans.
But Hamas, which opened the gates of hell on Gaza on October 7 and now refuses to close them unless guaranteed its hold on power, is a full partner in this suffering. For 18 years, its authoritarian and oppressive rule drove hundreds of thousands of young Palestinians to flee Gaza in search of a better life — any life. Trapped in a blockaded enclave, they paid thousands in bribes to leave through the only exit controlled by Hamas and Egypt. For many, it was a one-way ticket — no return.
Tens of thousands now march through Gaza’s ruined streets, demanding an end to this nightmare at any cost. They didn’t choose this war — Hamas did. Now Hamas refuses to pay the price, insisting instead on returning to pre-war rule: iron-fisted control, leg shootings, and summary executions.
After 19 months of war, 54,000 dead, and 150,000 wounded, Hamas still clings to power. Even if mass deportation of Gazans proceeds, Hamas’ only concern is retaining control: it’s either them — or no one at all, not even the people of Gaza.
One Gazan wrote on Facebook: “If Gaza turns into a cemetery, Hamas’ demand will be to govern the cemetery.”
This month marks 77 years since the Nakba — when 6,000 Palestinians were killed and 750,000 were expelled. Today, over 54,000 have been killed in Gaza. More than 2 million displaced. 80 percent of the Strip destroyed. By sheer numbers, what’s happening is worse than a second Nakba. The first Nakba established the Israeli state. The fear now is that this one might erase Palestinian presence entirely.
Many Gazans today are the grandchildren of those expelled in 1948 — and now face being expelled again.
Hamas doesn’t see this displacement as a major problem. Hamas leader Osama Hamdan even stated that if Palestinians are exiled to Sinai, they will continue “resistance” from Egyptian territory.
No one can ask a mother to keep her children under bombardment. No father should have to watch his parents and family die under fire in the name of lofty slogans like the “national project.” But we must not allow these impossible choices to be weaponized for even greater crimes.
The moral dilemma isn’t the individual’s decision to flee — it’s in turning that decision into a political tool. The Palestinian right to a dignified life cannot be turned into an excuse to uproot them from their land. Survival must not be traded for demographic reengineering of Palestine.
Like every people at war, Palestinians have the right to flee death — but also the right to return once the bombs stop.
The tragedy is not that people want to survive. The real tragedy is when their survival becomes the very carrot dangled over them, tempting them away from their homeland, and ensuring its erasure. What’s happening in Gaza is not migration — it’s exile under fire. A recycled plan from past catastrophes, now cloaked in the language of “mercy” and “salvation.”
We must stand clearly against this moral fraud. Every Palestinian has the right to dream of a dignified life — but in their homeland, not over its ashes. The international community — and Palestinians themselves — must reject selling the right to live at the expense of the right to return. Because if the world accepts the eviction of the people of Gaza today, Palestinians will soon find ourselves writing our next plea from a refugee camp — and no one will answer. The fate of Gaza’s 2.3 million may mirror the 750,000 expelled in 1948, still clinging to their dream of return.
It is Hamas that must leave Gaza and be made never to return. Hamas — the leaders who dragged their people into ruin. Hamas must be held accountable for its crimes on October 7, and removed from the Palestinian political landscape entirely. Whatever the cost, it is Hamas that must pay it — not the displaced and shattered people of Gaza.
We must respect the will of those who wish to leave Gaza in search of a better life and refrain from politicizing their pursuit of survival. At the same time, we must fight for their right to return whenever they choose — free from any political agendas imposed by Israel, Hamas, or anyone else.
Words cannot capture the whole reality in Gaza, nor can photos, or videos. Attempts at reproduction show only a tiny fragment of the devastating situation. People around the world watch the Gazan torment on their phones or televisions and applaud the Gazan people’s “steadfastness.” But the people of Gaza should not have to be steadfast, they should not have to be brave. They are forced to be steadfast because they have no other option.
What Palestinians in Gaza are seeking now is to escape death — through an end to the war, the reconstruction of Gaza, and access to enough food without having to risk their lives to get it — political plans for “the day after” are not their concern at the moment, and they should not be required to answer that question in order to secure safety. However, one thing is abundantly clear — even if they are not focused on that question now, they do not want Hamas to rule Gaza again. They are living through Hamas’ rule — and see for themselves what it yields.
Whether the alternative to Hamas is the Palestinian Authority or a joint Arab force alongside the Palestinian Authority that ultimately leads to a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinians do not want more bloodshed, destruction, or displacement. And the alleviation of their torment should be all of our foremost concern.