Gaza defies Trump

There is no doubt that the sight of Palestinians returning on foot to Gaza City and the north of the enclave with their humble belongings amazed the world. The march was the best possible response to US President Donald Trump who wants to displace the people from Gaza to Egypt and Jordan; he wants ethnic cleansing in all but name. Gaza has defied Trump. The Palestinians are committed to their land, which has been watered with their blood, sweat and tears for thousands of years. Their roots are so deep that they cannot be cut out.

The people of Gaza have returned to their towns and villages but they no longer have homes to live in or shelters. Gaza has become uninhabitable as UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, but the Palestinians have returned anyway and thus defied the powers that be in the world.

The so-called international community conspired against Gaza, which may be small in area, but is big in dignity and steadfastness. It did not wave a white flag; it stood tall against all odds, and taught the whole world the meaning of being connected to the land, even if everything is destroyed. They have paid the price with Palestinian blood, which has soaked into the land and will make it green again. The Palestinians didn’t need the Zionists to make the desert bloom; they were already doing so for centuries.

Gaza will rise from the ashes and rubble, as it always has and always will as long as the Zionist enemy continues to occupy Palestinian land. The Palestinian people will never be defeated. Their extraordinary heroism exemplifies a nation defending their land and freedom, arguably the most heroic in modern history.

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Those who believe that the Gaza Strip only expresses the will of those who live there, and that it is merely a part of the historic land of Palestine from the river to the sea, are mistaken.

The truth is that Gaza encapsulates and embodies all of Palestine.

The majority of its people were ethnically cleansed from the rest of Palestine in 1948. The armies of the British Mandate occupation authorities and the Arab armies that were defeated told them, “Flee from the fighting and you’ll be back in a week.” The Palestinians believed this lie and left their land carrying the keys to their homes, but they never returned. This hard lesson has been learnt well by the Palestinian people. They understand that steadfastness on their land is the way to victory in this long struggle across the generations, with each handing over the keys and the torch of freedom to the next.

While the international community that supports the Zionist entity weeps over its people, the Palestinians returned to their towns and villages in Gaza, but the invading settlers did not return to the Gaza envelope. This is the difference between the Palestinians, the indigenous people, and the settlers who came from around the world to usurp a land that is not theirs. These invaders fear the Palestinians, as opinion polls testify. Jewish immigration to occupied Palestine has apparently declined significantly. The latest Israeli statistics show that the number of Jews who migrated to the occupation entity dwindled to 24,000 throughout 2024, while the number of those who left reached 700,000 in the first year of the war, according to estimates by Professor Ilan Pappe, the prominent Israeli historian.

Despite everything, what the Palestinians in Gaza have done is miraculous. They have exhausted the Zionist enemy militarily, economically and morally in the longest war that it has fought since the establishment of the illegitimate entity in the middle of our Arab homeland. Benjamin Netanyahu had to accept Hamas’s conditions to end the war and hand over the captives, whose locations he could not find, despite his military might and strong intelligence. Even the way they were handed over as part of the ceasefire deal was humiliating for Israel and its leaders. One Israeli soldier came out of Jabalia, which was completely destroyed; another came out of the rubble in Khan Younis; and another came from in front of the house of the martyr Yahya Sinwar. Some powerful symbols and messages were sent when handing over the captives, such as the Israeli rifle that the resistance seized from one of the soldiers and which was placed on the table where the Red Cross delegate and a representative of the resistance were sitting to sign that they had received the captives. There were also the Merkava tanks left behind by the Israeli army that filled the square.

Is this a nation that can be defeated or who will accept being forcibly displaced from their land?

The delusion pushed by Trump and Netanyahu that the Palestinian people will accept an “alternative homeland” in Egypt and Jordan in order to liquidate the Palestinian cause will shatter against the steadfastness of the Palestinians and their legitimate resistance against occupation. No worldly incentives or inducements will be accepted, no matter the circumstances. The Palestinian people are the people of sacrifices and heroism. They have taught the whole world the meaning of a homeland and how to preserve it with blood in a way that always defeats the sword.

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The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.