Palestinians from the Gaza Strip responded on Wednesday to U.S. President Donald Trump's proposal for a U.S. "takeover" of the Gaza Strip with shock, anxiety and outrage.
"He is a businessman, and that is all he is ever going to be," said Muatasim Yassin, a 42-year-old social worker from Gaza City to Haaretz, "His vision is limited to what he knows, a real estate project. He's not a military person or a politician."
He added that "Trump sees us [Gazans] as stumbling blocks to his fantasy." The father of three said he believed Trump's aim is to "defeat Palestinians' demands for a Palestinian state."
The announcement, he said, has sparked even greater worries and fears in the hearts of his fellow Gazans. "Families in Gaza have lost everything they've built so far while trying to maintain the land," said Yassin, "especially here in northern Gaza where we have endured hunger, cold, and constant bombings because we're not willing to give up our land."
Osama Rantisi, a 25-year-old Palestinian from Beit Lahia, was a third-year law student when the Gaza war erupted 16 months ago. He said he was astonished that Arab countries had not been consulted about the U.S. plan for Gaza.
The people of Gaza "now more than ever, feel the absence of a future, of our right to determine our own fate, and even the absence of a clear vision of what time may bring," said Rantisi.
A Palestinian woman and children sit amid the rubble of destroyed buildings in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip, on Wednesday.Credit: AFP/Omar Al-Qattaa
Still, he said he believes there are forces "greater than Trump, Netanyahu, and the other hypocrites who seek to displace us. We are a people the world has tried to erase for decades, and now our cause has become a global issue and a test of humanity."
At a joint press conference in the White House on Tuesday evening with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump said the United States should "take over" the Gaza Strip, describing it as a "symbol of death and destruction."
People walk amid collapsed buildings in the northern Gaza Strip on Wednesday.Credit: AFP/Omar AL-Qattaa
He promised to turn the enclave into "the Riviera of the Middle East" and "something that the entire Middle East can be very proud of."
When questioned about the legality and morality of forcibly displacing the population, he insisted the Palestinians in Gaza would "love to leave."
"Why would they want to return?" he asked. "The place has been hell."
Palestinian and Arab leaders have uniformly rejected what they describe as Trump's "real estate project" in the seaside enclave.
A 5-year-old, who was displaced with his family to the southern part of Gaza, plays with a toy retrieved from under the rubble of their house, after returning to it, in Jabalia, northern Gaza Strip, in January.Credit: Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters
Gazans living abroad appeared not to take the Trump proposal as seriously as those still living in the Strip.
Fahd Aboud, a 37-year-old Palestinian originally from Deir al-Balah, who lives in Turkey, described Trump as an "old fool" and his plan as "empty promises."
"It's true that Trump and the Israeli army try to empty Gaza from Gazans by imposing inhumane situations and impossible living conditions," said Aboud, who relocated four years ago to Istanbul for a job in tourism, "but just like Netanyahu, Trump does not comprehend that Gazans would rather die than leave the Strip."
A Palestinian man sells vegatables in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip, on Wednesday.Credit: AFP/Omar Al-Qattaa
Abdel Azziz Miqdad, who currently lives in Germany, lost his father, uncle, and other relatives during the war.
"We have died before the 'plan', we're dying during it, and we'll die after it," said the 29-year-old Palestinian student who moved to Germany to complete his master's degree.
He said he believes Trump's plan for Gaza, if implemented, will have far-reaching effects on the region. "The focus may be on Gazans being displaced, but the plan has already been implemented in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and even within the Green Line," said Miqdad, whose mother and siblings live in the Mawasi refugee camp in Khan Yunis.
He said he expected Gazans living in the Strip "to fight back, because otherwise, all the loss and the death toll that Gaza endured so far would be for nothing."
He urged neighboring Arab countries not to cooperate with Trump either. "They should close the borders, and prohibit the transfer of Palestinians outside their land," he said.
He added: "We have been displaced many times in our lifetime. It's more than we can handle."