As a Palestinian journalist and author forcibly displaced for over a year, I find myself once again grappling with the weight of words that seek to erase my people’s existence. US president Donald Trump’s recent comments about “taking over” Gaza and relocating around 2.1 million people left me speechless.
When I first heard Trump’s proposal, my initial reaction was laughter – not the kind that follows a funny joke, but the type born of disbelief at the sheer absurdity and cruelty of the suggestion. It’s a laughter tinged with a sickening sense of familiarity.
Imagine living in a genocide zone for 15 months, facing unimaginable suffering. Then, for a ceasefire to finally happen, only for someone in the US to decide where you should live next. Palestinians in Gaza are already homeless and displaced inside their own country.
And despite that, thousands of Palestinians walked for miles just to go back to their bombed house in the north of Gaza. Do you expect them to just leave their land?
I met Palestinians who refused to leave their turtles and birds behind when Israel asked them to evacuate their house and you expect them to leave their land because Trump said so?
As someone whose family has experienced displacement, I can assure you: we do not welcome further dispossession. Gaza is not a piece of real estate to be “developed” into a “Riviera of the Middle East”. It is home to over 2 million people, many of whom are already refugees, holding on to the keys of homes they were forced to flee decades ago.
When I asked my 78-year-old grandmother, Fatma, who now lives in Australia after being displaced at least five times in her life, about her thoughts, she told me: “Yafa is the home where I was born and raised, from where I was displaced when I was two years old. Then I got to call Gaza home, and I was displaced again in 2023. And now I can go to neither Gaza nor Yafa. So where is home?”
Her house in Gaza was bombed, adding another layer of trauma to her experiences of displacement. When I shared Trump’s comments with her, she responded fiercely: “He can give them a state from America. Palestine is not his land to sell. This is not real estate; this is our home.”
She added, with a mixture of determination and weariness, “for 76 years I’ve been waiting to go back to Yafa. For a year I’ve been waiting to go back to Gaza. The moment the borders open, I’m planning to go back.”
She also said: “We’re not a ball for him to kick us in and out of our land whenever he wants.” As my grandmother now lives in Australia temporarily, she follows the news and watches with dismay as the Australian government’s response to Trump’s comments remains tepid at best.
I expect more from the country that is supposed to be home for my grandmother now. Australia should unequivocally condemn any proposal that involves the forced displacement of Palestinians and reaffirm its commitment to international law and the rights of Palestinians to live with dignity in their homeland. This isn’t about Palestinians, it is about human lives and the world we live in.
This is your reminder that Gaza is not just a news headline. Gaza is home for 2.1 million people.