When Mahmoud Ghazali recently discussed the prospect of leaving Gaza with his six children, they were “excited” at the idea of finally escaping the relentless war — though his youngest, eight-year-old Nabil, “stunned everyone” by doubting whether they would be alive long enough to get out.
“We are all in despair,” said Ghazali, who had returned to his home in Gaza City during the shortlived ceasefire that Israel broke last month. “I hope we never reach the point when we have to choose between our homeland and our safety.”
Like everyone in Gaza, the Ghazali family is struggling not only with the trauma, hunger and loss caused by 18 months of war. They are reckoning with the prospect of being expelled from their homeland as part of an outlandish plan first proposed by US President Donald Trump and unabashedly embraced by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right allies.