Almost six months after the massacres of October 7 and the beginning of Israel’s all-out war against Hamas, the majority of the Gaza Strip lies in ruins. The number of estimated casualties in the Strip, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry, has surpassed 30,000, the majority of them – just like the majority of massacred Israelis – civilians.
More than half of Gaza’s housing stock has been damaged or destroyed, and several UN officials have described the coastal enclave as largely unlivable. And still, the war goes on.
With Hamas leadership still sheltering behind its own civilians, IDF operations are now moving into the very same areas to which Palestinians were asked to evacuate. Unless unprecedented and unlikely pressure is brought to bear by the international community, it’s hard to see Israel stopping before achieving its stated objective of destroying Hamas – at the very least, as a military force – and eliminating its most recognizable military leaders.
In every other situation of this kind – consider Syria or Ukraine – we will, by now, have seen an exodus of refugees into the nearest friendly or neutral territories. For Gazans, jammed between Israel proper and the Mediterranean Sea, the only such destination is Egypt.
But Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has been adamant that no such movement will be allowed, suggesting that if Israel wanted to allow Palestinian civilians to evacuate, it could take them into the Negev – the Israeli region immediately
bordering the Strip. Notably, while Palestinians and their allies are using every possible leverage to stop Israel’s campaign, they are far less vocal on allowing Palestinians to leave the Strip, or on pressuring friendly countries to accept them. The reason is simple: they remember 1948, and fear that anyone who leaves Gaza will never be allowed to come back.
They’re right to be concerned. A few months ago, the mass expulsion of Palestinians beyond the borders of historical Eretz Yisrael/Palestine was a fevered dream of the most far-right faction of Israel’s far-right government.
Even the massive demographic shifts of 1948 were only possible under the fog of a cataclysmic regional war, which did not seem on the table even as late as October 6. But on October 7, Hamas kicked the table over. Events since have created both the domestic political impetus and some – if not all – of the regional conditions needed for such mass displacement.
What was once recognized as fantasy is now seeping into the mainstream, even public discourse among policymakers. It’s not just the original advocates who feel emboldened – although they certainly are.
The most prominent of them Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich declared just the other week that in his ideal scenario, no more than 100,000-200,000 Gazans should remain in the enclave, with the territory being otherwise converted to a demilitarized zone and/or allocated to Israeli settlers, establishing the communities displaced in the Disengagement of 2005.
Much more alarmingly, we heard Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself begin to entertain the same idea. Asked by a Likud MK about voluntary evacuation, Netanyahu told a caucus meeting that he is “working on it... the problem being finding countries who’ll accept [Palestinians].”
The chilling phrase Smotrich used was “voluntary emigration.” Netanyahu’s turn of phrase was only slightly softer: “voluntary evacuation.” But to Palestinians and to anyone else who’s watched our conflict over the years, it’s clear both phrases translate into a single word: exile.
At the same time, it is eminently clear that the civilian population of Gaza does need to be evacuated. The war is set to continue for months to come, and even if it were to stop tomorrow, virtually all that makes a city function has been damaged or destroyed.
Allowing Gazans to temporarily enter Israel would kill two birds with one stone
THERE IS another way that would both take the majority of Palestinian civilians out of harm’s way, allow the IDF to accomplish its mission, and preclude the geopolitical cataclysm that would ensue if 2 million Palestinians were suddenly displaced into Egypt. It is this: take Sisi’s jibe and Netanyahu’s Orwellianism in earnest. Evacuate Gaza’s civilian population, temporarily – into Israel.
Let me explain why I feel this is the most practical, moral, and just way forward. From a practical perspective, this is far from impossible. Unlike the northeastern border area around the Gaza Strip, which bore the brunt of the Hamas attacks, the Negev to the immediate southeast of the Strip is sparsely populated, but does have civilian and military infrastructure that would allow to set up of temporary relief camps relatively quickly: the grid, paved roads, and water supplies. The relative isolation from the Israeli population would reduce the risk of friction and clashes.
The proximity to Egypt’s border will allow sympathetic Arab nations to provide assistance while side-stepping much of the diplomatic minefield of overt engagement with Israeli sovereignty. This would also be an opportunity to test the Saudi-American-Israeli axis that was being forged before the war, deploying it to help Palestinians rather than sideline them. Saudi Arabia could take much of the lead on the operation, further addressing the concerns of Gazan citizens who have no immediate reason to trust our promises.
Morally, as a religious Jew, I cannot contemplate what we are doing in Gaza without considering the Abrahamic stance on “collateral damage” – that is to say, without recalling the dispute between Abraham and God as He is about to destroy Sodom.
According to the book of Genesis, God shares with Abraham his decision precisely so that Abraham can argue with him. Abraham takes up the challenge and lobbies God to reconsider: “Will you destroy the righteous with the wicked?” he asks Him. And also: “Will the judge of all the land act unjustly?”
The moral quandary in Gaza is no different: whatever we might think of the wickedness of Hamas, it is obvious that the vast majority of Gazans are innocent civilians, and even if political opinions made those who harbor them liable for punishment – which they do not – polls taken on the eve of the war indicated over 70% of the population of Gaza opposed Hamas (More recent polls have seen a swing in the other direction, but during wartime, especially early stages, populations do tend to rally behind whoever they see as taking the fight to the enemy.)
Abraham failed in the argument with God. However, he bequeathed to all of us, his descendants, a clear moral stance: “No” to collective punishment and certainly “no” to collective destruction.
Finally, inviting Palestinians to cross into what, to them, is historical Palestine might reduce their fears of a second Nakba. I am what most Palestinians would call an Israeli settler: I live in Gush Etzion, a Jewish community overrun, massacred, and expelled in the war of 1948 and re-established in 1967. While I never experienced anything close to what the Palestinians in Gaza are experiencing now, I’d venture to say I do understand the feeling of fearing to lose one’s home because it stands in the way of someone else’s vision for a “solution” to the conflict.
While I’m horrified by the price they are paying for their fortitude, I know too many people in my own community who, like Gazans, would never consider leaving their land even under literal hellfire. Inviting Palestinians to become not refugees abroad but rather internally displaced persons in their own country is far from comforting, but at least it might spare them this terrible dilemma.
Ultimately, the Gaza war is part of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. With all due respect to our allies and our neighbors, it needs to be resolved within Israel-Palestine, by Israelis and Palestinians. As even the founding father of right-wing Zionism, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, understood 100 years ago, there will always be two nations in this land.
Feeding the illusion that one of them can be successfully and completely expelled beyond its boundaries guarantees another 100 years of conflict. Accepting both our communities are here to stay – and acting on that acceptance, even among the horror and rage of war – is the only pathway that could lead us towards peace.
The writer, a member of Kibbutz Kfar Etzion, is an Israeli poet and peace activist.