Joshua Krug
Recently, I reached out to a prominent Palestinian activist to learn about his experiences in Gaza since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel. He told me that his apartment had been destroyed, and that he lives in a tent with his family. They are under the near-constant threat of bombings, are often hungry, and are worried about starvation and sickness. He wants to leave the enclave—but right now, he can’t.
Several other Palestinians I’ve talked with also want to leave Gaza, and have also encountered closed borders. They of course want the violence to stop, and do not want to be permanently shut out. But above all, they want to be safe. (And I have withheld their names to protect their safety.)
An article in The Guardian this month featured a U.K.-based Palestinian who said his family members were killed in Israeli air strikes and echoed the above sentiments: “I’m not sure why no schemes have been introduced, nothing to evacuate people. I don’t even hear humanitarians talk about this any more.”
I am an American Jewish academic based in Germany, and I oppose the forced relocation of Palestinians from their land. Gaza is central to Palestinian history, and I would like people there to survive and thrive right where they are. Still, life—rather than land—should be the ultimate value, a simple fact often lost in the heated debates around the current conflict. I hear calls for a cease-fire and for the surrender of Hamas, but almost never for a safe path out of an active war zone. Palestinians deserve a state of their own, and the opportunity to take refuge outside a war zone rather than serve as martyrs for “the cause.”
About 2 million Palestinian civilians are trapped in Gaza. The enclave is surrounded by Israel, Egypt, and the Mediterranean Sea, and is subject to a blockade from all sides. The Rafah border crossing into the Sinai Peninsula would seem to be the most obvious way out, but Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi opposes letting in civilians on the grounds that this would undermine Palestinian aspirations for an independent state, breach Egypt’s sovereignty, and create security problems, potentially destabilizing the country. (Egypt has accepted a small number of Palestinians from Gaza in need of medical care, and some Palestinians have been able to leave the enclave by paying bribes.)
The international conversation around Palestinians leaving Gaza is mostly focused on the future: not freedom of mobility now, but control over land later. At a United Nations Security Council meeting this month, United Nations delegates “categorically rejected any statements proposing that Palestinians should be resettled outside of Gaza.” UN delegates do not want to rubber-stamp what some regard as forced displacement. The Palestinian permanent observer asserted that his people now have “only three options: death, exodus, or subjugation” and called for an immediate cease-fire, a position that a supermajority of UN delegates likewise advocate.
In an attempt to quell these anxieties, the Israeli delegate said that Israel seeks only temporary evacuation of civilians and insisted that “there is no forced displacement.” But some critics of Israel’s policies worry that, one way or another, the war will result in the expulsion of Palestinians from their land. Such arguments are grounded in disconcerting statements from Israeli public officials. The far-right Israeli Minister of Security Itamar Ben-Gvir said this month, “We cannot withdraw from any territory we are in in the Gaza Strip. Not only do I not rule out Jewish settlement there; I believe it is also an important thing,” and further spoke of the “opportunity to concentrate on encouraging the migration of the residents of Gaza.”
Ultimately, however, concerns about the future do not amount to a compelling argument for turning away refugees in the here and now. Palestinian families should not have to remain in Gaza during wartime if that is not what they want. Although many fear getting locked out, being locked in is hardly a desirable alternative.
Palestinian civilians in harm’s way should have the option of being where Hamas is not, and where Israel is not going to strike. And the most obvious site for relocation is Egypt. Given the Sinai Peninsula’s proximity to Gaza, sheltering in Egypt could be a matter of moving just a couple of miles from where Palestinians are camped out now in Rafah, and would mean dramatically better conditions. Accordingly, the international community should pressure—and work with—Egypt to officially make accommodations.
Writing in The Jerusalem Post, the Israeli academic Joel Roskin argued that, in accepting Palestinian refugees from Gaza, Egypt “will be hailed by the international community as the savior of the dire plight of Gazans; it will strengthen its status as a leader of the Arab world; and it will finally fulfill its 30+-year-old plan to settle the Sinai and strengthen its control of this zone.” Regardless of the veracity of such assertions, giving people in harm’s way a lifeline is the right thing to do. And the U.S. can encourage this process by taking Egypt’s security concerns seriously. Among other things, it could offer financial assistance to nations that welcome Palestinian refugees, as suggested by Democratic Representative Emanuel Cleaver in a measure introduced late last year.
In theory, just as Israel has relocated thousands of citizens internally since the October 7 attacks, the Palestinian Authority–run West Bank could also provide refuge to Palestinian civilians from Gaza. For this to work, the international community would have to underwrite temporary housing in Palestinian areas with Israel’s full security cooperation and support.
Less likely, but not impossible: Israel itself could provide refuge to Palestinian civilians. The Israeli writer Yuval Noah Harari has suggested as much: “The Red Cross or some other international organization [could] build temporary safe havens for Gazan civilians on Israeli soil for the duration of the conflict.” The Israeli journalist Haviv Rettig Gur has specifically named “the sands of Nitzana” as a location where Gaza’s civilians could temporarily be given shelter. Alan Pino, a former U.S. national intelligence officer, and Casimir Yost, who directed the Strategic Futures Group at the National Intelligence Council, have likewise called for Israel to “temporarily accommodate women and children fleeing Gaza by providing a humanitarian corridor to vacant land in the south” of Israel.
Such a move could undercut allegations of ongoing ethnic cleansing by Israel. Not only that, Pino and Yost believe that it could “reinforce the Israeli commitment to minimize harm to civilians even as it rightly seeks to destroy the threat posed by Hamas.” In terms of America’s interests, it “could also underscore President Biden’s concern to protect innocent civilians while fully supporting Israel’s security needs.” Fear of permanent displacement would likely not apply if Palestinians were sheltering inside Israel, of all places.
Countries further afield could also help Gazan refugees. Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf has called for Scotland to offer sanctuary to Palestinians. But no country has actually done so, not even Germany, which has taken in about 1 million Syrian refugees and 1 million Ukrainian refugees in the past decade.
These proposals would all be rendered more plausible if Israel made a firm commitment to allow Palestinians back into Gaza after the conflict. Senator Bernie Sanders and Representatives Ayanna Pressley and Jamie Raskin have called on Israel to do so. In a letter arguing against forced displacement this month, the representatives wrote, “The United States must ensure that there is no question that Palestinian civilians who wish to remain in the Gaza Strip have the right to do so,” and “if Palestinian civilians choose to leave Gaza voluntarily in search of safety, they must be guaranteed to be allowed to return.” Likewise, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ilze Brands Kehris has stated that Palestinians’ “right to return to home must be subject to ‘an ironclad guarantee.’”
Israel should make this promise—of a kind it has never before made to Palestinians, whose modern narrative as a people is centered around their parents’ and grandparents’ experience of exile in 1948 and 1967—and the United States should help enforce it. If Palestinians and their allies believe that Gaza will remain in Palestinian hands, taking refuge will no longer seem, to some, like a prelude to permanent dispossession.
Even in normal times, Hamas does not accord its subjects basic human freedoms. That should be enough to grant Palestinians in Gaza refugee status. Now many Palestinians have no home, or reliable access to water, food, or medicine, while warplanes fly overhead. Badly wanting these conditions to change is not incompatible with honoring the wishes of those who simply want safety right now. Relocation is reversible. Dying is not.
More than 100 people kidnapped from Israel on October 7 remain hostages in Gaza. Palestinian civilians in Gaza are hostages, too. But that can change.
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