Since Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel on October 7, 1.4 million people have been displaced in Gaza following Israeli orders to flee south, according to the United Nations. That’s over 60 percent of the Gaza Strip’s population.
In wartime, civilians sometimes have to flee an area until it’s safe to return. In the early days following the Russian invasion in 2022, for instance, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians fled in search of safety. But many Palestinians worldwide fear that those who are trying to escape the fighting in Gaza will never be able to return to their homes. The displacement, they worry, will become a permanent exile.
That helps explain why Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who governs the West Bank, is strongly opposing any plan that involves the mass displacement of Palestinians. Neighboring Arab states Egypt and Jordan are refusing to take in Gazans in part because of security and economic concerns, but also because they say they don’t want to enable such a displacement. “What is happening now in Gaza is an attempt to force civilian residents to take refuge and migrate to Egypt,” said Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, adding that such a displacement would render the idea of a Palestinian state unviable. “The land will be there, but the people won’t.”
There are three main drivers of this fear. The first is ingrained in Palestinian memory: In 1948, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were permanently expelled during the first Arab-Israeli war, and intermittent displacements have continued ever since, as Israel has sought to maintain a Jewish majority in the state by pushing Palestinians out.
The second driver is what Israeli politicians were increasingly saying in the months before the Hamas attack — their pro-expulsionist rhetoric was so stark that experts warned signs of another mass expulsion were mounting.
And the third driver is what the Israeli defense establishment has been saying since…
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