I hear you.
And in an ideal world, displaced Palestinians would be temporarily housed elsewhere whilst Gaza is rebuilt.
But they are right to distrust those who would remove them, for fear of never being allowed to return.
It's probably best expressed by Palestinians themselves, rather than me :
“The days of displacement were the hardest and most exhausting,” Rifaat says. “We cannot imagine continuing our lives as displaced people away from our homes.”
“Anyone who sees these crowds understands well that
no plans for forced displacement will succeed, no matter what happens,” he adds, before suggesting that he may even be able to return to Ashdod – a city just north of Gaza but now in Israel – from which his family were forcibly displaced in 1948 during what Palestinians call the Nakba
__________
Sami al-Dabbagh, a 39-year-old heading back to Sheikh Radwan in northern Gaza, explains that he was displaced to several different areas before settling in central Gaza. The father-of-four, having walked on foot for hours, says he will never make the same mistake again.
“We will never repeat the experience of displacement, no matter what happens,” al-Dabbagh says.
It’s a sentiment shared by another man travelling up to northern Gaza, Radwan al-Ajoul.
“Displacement has taught us never to leave our homes again,” he says, as he carries his belongings on his shoulder.