Trump’s plan is not only illegal and immoral—it is profoundly dangerous.
Trump’s plan is not only illegal and immoral; it is deeply reckless and dangerous, blatantly disregarding the rights and humanity of the people in Gaza.
It also distorts the reality of their suffering, obscuring the true cause: Israel’s decades-long violent military occupation—one that predates Hamas by generations—along with its relentless siege and repeated assaults on Gaza. These actions have suffocated the population, stripped them of freedom and dignity, and shattered their livelihoods and futures.
It is the U.S. government—through unwavering military funding and diplomatic protection—that has enabled this crisis to persist unchecked.
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After Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Netanyahu’s government made its intentions clear: to make Gaza unlivable, reducing it to “islands of ruins,” and to orchestrate another Nakba—the mass displacement that saw over 750,000 Palestinians, more than half the population in 1948, expelled or forced to flee after the creation of Israel.
Israeli forces then systematically destroyed everything essential to life in Gaza—schools, hospitals, places of worship, roads, water sources, and the vast majority of farmland and fishing fleets—leaving only devastation in their wake.
For years, Israeli policy has been driven by a clear objective: to maximize control over the land while minimizing the Palestinian population. After the Hamas attack, Netanyahu reportedly encouraged his Strategic Affairs Minister, Ron Dermer, to “thin” Gaza’s population, according to Israel Hayom—a chilling euphemism for forced transfer, or ethnic cleansing by any other name.
Instead of facing accountability, Netanyahu was welcomed to Washington, D.C., with red-carpet treatment—securing a $1 billion weapons deal, a promised $8.7 billion more, and a U.S. commitment that appears to align with what I believe is his ultimate goal: the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza.
Trump is merely following Biden’s lead, shielding Israel and providing it with diplomatic cover—setting a dangerous precedent that war criminals can act with total impunity.
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Listening to Trump, one might think Palestinians exist in some kind of suspended nightmare—an endless Groundhog Day of suffering with no escape. But the reality is even more painful.
The majority of Palestinians in Gaza have already endured violent displacement—not once, but multiple times. Most are refugees or descendants of those ethnically cleansed during the 1948 Nakba, forced from their towns and villages in historic Palestine’s greater Gaza district. Denied their right to return for generations, they now face yet another looming expulsion.
Growing up as a stateless Palestinian in Saudi Arabia, I watched my mother work tirelessly to preserve our Palestinian residency status. She made regular visits to Gaza, determined to safeguard our identity and our right to return home.
Many of our relatives were not as fortunate—stripped of their homeland after Israel’s occupation in 1967. Now, those in my family who have survived Israel’s most recent onslaught in Gaza tell me they would rather die beneath the rubble of their homes than be forced to leave.
Never did we imagine that, within our lifetime, we would witness an open declaration to erase our society and ethnically cleanse what remains of our people.
More than a century after the 1917 Balfour Declaration laid the groundwork for a Jewish homeland in Palestine—and after decades of Palestinian struggle for freedom and rights—we are now witnessing yet another blatant act of dispossession. Trump’s proposal to forcibly remove Palestinians from Gaza and place it under U.S. control is nothing less than a continuation of the same colonial theft that has defined this conflict for generations.
It is an audacious attempt to strip an entire people of their land and sovereignty, mirroring the injustices of the past but with even greater brazenness and disregard for the Palestinians who have lived there for centuries.
Trump’s plan must be unequivocally rejected by the international community—for the sake of the Palestinian people in Gaza and to preserve what little remains of the rules-based global order.
Laila El-Haddad is a Palestinian American writer and author from Gaza.
