PEOPLE BETWEEN WORLDS

What future is there for Gaza?

The Gaza genocide is showing no signs of stopping. Benjamin Netanyahu was in Washington DC last week to supposedly discuss a ceasefire deal, but nothing has emerged thus far.

This is after nearly two years of daily carnage. The death toll in the hundreds of thousands; the frequently cited estimate of 50-60 thousand deaths is a severe undercount due to the many buried under the rubble, as well as the infrastructure of Gaza’s Health Ministry being annihilated. This is not a war. The vast majority of casualties are civilians. The world has not seen a genocide of this scale since perhaps Rwanda.

Even though the genocide is still ongoing, it is still worth speculating on what lies next for Gaza, if there is to be anything at all.

It will take billions to rebuild. It is doubtful that either Israel or the United States would be willing to put up that kind of money, unless one very specific criteria is met: the total expulsion of the Palestinian population from Gaza. Since the beginning of the genocide, it is estimated that 1.9 million Gazans have been displaced. That is well over 90% of Gaza’s total population. Israel’s goal is to expel the population in order to build more illegal settlements as they are doing in the West Bank right now. Perhaps Trump’s plan for a “Riviera of the Middle East” will come to fruition.

If push comes to shove, it is possible that the Arab nations, especially Egypt, will open their borders and start to accept Palestinian refugees. This is vital part of Israel’s plan for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.

But the Israeli’s have one major problem — the will of the Palestinians.

The Palestinian people have endured a century of colonization, genocides, ethnic cleansing, and nearly every injustice a human being can suffer. This current genocide is the worst one they have ever faced. But despite this, their will remains unbroken.

The will of the Palestinian people to resist the violence of their occupiers will remain until the last Palestinian is buried.