Since Israel's creation, it always wanted to rid itself of the majority of Palestinians who weren't kicked out in 1948. From occupation to genocide and maybe a new Nakba, there's a clear throughline.
The Nakba—or the Catastrophe—is the term Palestinians use to describe the events of 1948 when they were violently dispossessed of their land and property and ethnically cleansed from their homeland in Palestine with the establishment of the state of Israel. In the decades that have passed, Palestinians have endured more land loss, military occupation, wars, apartheid, and even genocide.
As if these years of oppression and injustice were not enough, two million Palestinians now face the threat of ethnic cleansing from Gaza, making it the most significant act of displacement since 1948. It is noteworthy that 70% of Palestinians in Gaza are registered as refugees, many of which are descended from those displaced in 1948.
In looking at the straight line that connects the refugees of 1948 to those who have been forcibly displaced inside Gaza—as a result of Israel’s brutal genocide and now risk permanent expulsion—it is clear that, for Palestinians, the Nakba never ended.
President Trump’s “plan” for Gaza has dominated headlines and sparked condemnation across the globe for his brazen attempt to package ethnic cleansing as a humanitarian effort. However, in reality, expelling Palestinians from Gaza—and taking full control of the West Bank and East Jerusalem—have been the objectives of Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu and the political beliefs he represents all along.
In looking at the straight line that connects Palestinian refugees of 1948 to those who have been forcibly displaced inside Gaza, it is clear that the Nakba never ended
A false narrative
The Western narrative of the genocide in Gaza has had two main features. First, denying that Israel's actions constitute genocide despite the prevailing conclusions of the International Court of Justice, experts, UN reports, and the world's leading human rights groups. Second, overlooking the history of Palestinian subjugation by Israel before the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023. As a result, the dominant Western account obscures the reality on the ground before and after the October 7 attack.
It is this false narrative that explains the distance between the US-led Western world—which protects Israel at any cost, even excusing the mass slaughter of children and some of the most horrific crimes against humanity of the 21st century—and the rest of the international community that acknowledges the historic struggle for Palestinian self-determination.
In fact, Israel's desire to seize all Palestinian land was clear long before October 7 in the decades-long failed Oslo peace process, which Netanyahu called a "mistake" and boasted about having prevented a Palestinian state.
Just weeks before the October 7 attack against Israel, Netanyahu literally erased Palestine from the map, brandishing a depiction of Israel at the United Nations that included the West Bank and Gaza. The map was no accident—it reflected the very real desires and actions of Israel's prime minister and other officials within the Israeli government.
Prime Minister of the State of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu holds up a map as he speaks during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) at the United Nations headquarters on September 22, 2023, in New York City.
In the decades since the 1993 Oslo Accords, Israel has continued to expand its illegal settlements in the West Bank. Prime Minister Netanyahu's government vowed to expand settlements further in 2022, which was confirmed by a UN report in September of 2023 that stated over 1,100 Palestinians had been displaced in the West Bank from settler violence since the previous year.
Though Israel claims that their forces withdrew from Gaza in 2005, Israel's control over Gaza through land, air and sea made its actions consistent with a continued military occupation. In July of 2024, the International Court of Justice confirmed this fact with its landmark opinion, calling Israel's occupation of all Palestinian territories, including Gaza, illegal.
Hamas's attack on October 7 gave the Israeli government, under the control of Netanyahu, the pretext it needed to carry out a total assault on the Gaza Strip and reshape the region, including the elimination of Palestinians.
The deliberate destruction of Gaza
While Israeli officials justified their brutal attacks on Gaza's civilian population as an operation to save Israeli hostages, Netanyahu's government rejected an offer in early October 2023 to free all the civilian hostages. In essence, Netanyahu chose war over the hostages, a decision that has been criticised by hostage families in Israel. In an act of collective punishment that amounts to genocide, Israel sought to destroy Gaza and render it uninhabitable for its more than two million Palestinian residents.
People erect tents amidst the rubble of destroyed buildings as displaced Palestinians return to the northern areas of the Gaza Strip in Jabalia on January 23, 2025, during a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was reached.
This intentional destruction can be understood in the context of public statements by Israeli officials calling for its destruction and Israeli officials who continue to call on the military to destroy food, water and power sources in Gaza despite its current state of devastation.
Not mincing words, Israeli officials even used the term "Nakba" in the early days of Israel's genocide to describe what would befall Gaza, evoking the historic catastrophe of 1948 that displaced over 700,000 Palestinians from their land. Along with demands to destroy Gaza came appeals for Gaza's occupation by Israeli settlers.
Throughout the months of Israel's war on Gaza, the plan was made clear for the public to see for themselves. Israeli ministers and officials openly declared their intention to destroy Gaza, expel its Palestinian inhabitants, and occupy it with settlers.
But this objective was neither new nor unique to Gaza. Not only has the continued expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank been public knowledge for decades, but Israeli ministers were using the language of erasure to call for the destruction of Palestinian villages in the West Bank before the attacks of October 7. Such incitement to annihilate cities in the West Bank has continued unabated, with increased settler violence and pogroms against Palestinians in the West Bank occurring, enabled by the Israeli government.
Though we have seen Israel's attention shift in recent weeks to the West Bank after launching a new military operation there, the scale of destruction in Gaza is still incomparable and unprecedented in terms of global conflicts in recent decades. More than 90% of Gaza's population has been displaced, with over 90% of its housing units damaged. Gaza's water and sanitation systems have been destroyed, its healthcare system collapsed, universities demolished, and its ability to produce food severely damaged by the destruction of agriculture. It is estimated that it will take decades to rebuild or even to clear the debris.
No reasonable human being can look at the magnitude of wreckage and argue that it was the unintended consequence of urban warfare. Even President Trump and his administration have called Gaza a "demolition site" that is uninhabitable. However, Trump's interest in Gaza is far from humanitarian, as his disturbing plan to ethnically cleanse Palestinians has clearly shown.
Trump takes the mantle
Despite arrest warrantsissued by the International Criminal Court against Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, President Trump formally invited him as the first foreign leader to visit the White House. The precedent for ignoring ICC arrest warrants against Israeli officials was already set by the Biden administration when former Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant was allowed to travel to the United States in December.
There is much continuity between the two administrations as far as Israel is concerned, illustrating the zealous ideological outlook that informs bipartisan US foreign policy. However, Trump's declaration in a news conference with Netanyahu on 4 February that the US would "take over" Gaza—and force Palestinian refugees to go to neighbouring countries like Egypt and Jordan—shocked many for its blatant disregard for international law.
Trump was not unveiling a policy position but a list of war crimes the US is poised to commit, including the forcible transfer of a population and illegal annexation of their territory. While President Trump's language and the manner in which he does things makes his actions appear at odds with previous administrations, it is important to note that the current situation would not be possible without the Biden administration's unconditional support for Israel's genocide and total destruction of Gaza.
In fact, the Biden administration made similar proposals for Egypt to take Palestinians early in the war, which Cairo flat-out rejected. Now, the Trump administration is citing the impossibility of Palestinians being able to live in Gaza as a reason to force them out. Israeli officials are already framing this as "voluntary" migration and calling to seize Gaza permanently while threatening a Gaza-like fate for the West Bank.
For critics who believe Trump has emboldened the Israelis, I would ask, what could encourage impunity more than aiding a genocide? There is no doubt that Biden's actions have made Trump's possible today. By facilitating the demolition of Gaza and shredding international law and norms in the process, the Biden administration paved the way for Trump's ethnic cleansing plan.
And that is precisely what it is: an illegal proposal to remove Palestinians from their land by force, without the right of return, and to take the land as conquerors. It should come as no surprise that Palestinians have emphatically rejected it along with the international community.
Trump: "I've watched it so long, all the death and destruction of Gaza. A civilization's been wiped out in Gaza."
Although President Trump has correctly acknowledged that "a civilisation's been wiped out in Gaza," which could only be at the hands of Israel, his so-called solution is yet another step toward wiping out Palestinian existence. If he wants a legacy as a peacemaker, Trump needs to put a stop to Israel's long-sought erasure of Palestine and bring about the only real means to peace: Palestinian liberation and self-determination.
