Athens, Greece – Diaspora Palestinians who have been uprooted throughout earlier crises concern they might be witnessing the largest pressured displacement of their lifetimes.
“They tell us to go to the south [of Gaza],” mentioned Salma Shawwa, referring to Israel’s order to 1.5 million Palestinians residing within the northern Gaza Strip to maneuver south final month.
“So slowly, slowly we will go to the border and then to Sinai? Is this the solution? So Gaza will be gone also? And then [the Israelis] will go to the West Bank and Jerusalem, so we will all be gone?”
Israel ordered the evacuation, claiming it was trying to minimise civilian casualties because it launched a floor struggle in opposition to Hamas, which attacked Israel on October 7, killing about 1,200 individuals.
However after telling Palestinians to go away their properties, Israel bombed websites within the south, together with areas it had declared as secure.
Since Israel declared struggle in opposition to Hamas, it has killed greater than 14,100 Palestinians in Gaza, the densely populated enclave run by the Palestinian armed group.
Shawwa, whose father, grandfather and great-grandfather all served as mayors of Gaza, will not be certain evacuated Palestinians will ever be allowed to return.
Her sister, who nonetheless lives in Gaza along with her household, needed to depart as a result of her home was broken by bombing.
“My sister is not sure they can go back to their houses. Some of them tried and they were bombed,” mentioned Shawwa.
Shawwa arrived in Athens in 2000 and now works for the Athens Bar Affiliation.
Others have been right here longer, in a group roughly 13,000-strong.
Razan Simaan’s mother and father have been pressured from Palestine in the course of the Nakba, or disaster, as it’s identified, of 1948.
Between 1947 and 1949, Palestinians have been dispossessed and displaced as Israel was created, with Zionist paramilitaries forcibly eradicating 750,000 Palestinians from their properties. About 15,000 Palestinians have been killed, together with in a number of massacres.
Simaan was born in Beirut. Her household moved to Athens in the course of the first Lebanese civil struggle.
Hamas’s assault got here as no shock, she mentioned.
“There’s nothing happening that’s new, it’s just much more amplified,” Simaan mentioned. “We’re a little bit in shock that this isn’t clearer to the rest of the world. For us injustice is something we were born with and grew up with.”
Israel’s Western allies – the US, United Kingdom and the European Union – have labelled Hamas a “terrorist organisation”.
“Hamas is irrelevant,” mentioned Simaan. “Hamas wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for the occupation. It is a direct outcome of Israel.”
Different Palestinians agree along with her.
“Anyone who is under occupation has the right to use whatever means necessary to be free,” mentioned Latif Darwish, a professor of economics and disaster administration at Cardiff Metropolitan College.
“Hamas simply launched a military attack, which is something Palestinians are on the receiving end of every day. It was not a crime,” Darwish mentioned.
Like many Palestinians right here, Darwish believed the Israelis knew the assault was coming and let it occur so as to invade Gaza.
He mentioned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lately brandished a map displaying all of Palestine as sovereign Israeli territory on the United Nations Normal Meeting.
“There was a plan to eliminate Gaza or the people of Gaza. They were looking for an excuse,” mentioned Ahmed Hassan, the president of the Palestinian Affiliation.
He pointed to reviews that Egyptian intelligence had tipped off the Israelis of an impending assault on the fiftieth anniversary of the Yom Kippur Battle.
“Perhaps [the Israeli government] welcomed this attack without realising what the consequences would be,” Hassan steered.
The Palestinians who spoke to Al Jazeera believed there was nonetheless hope for Palestinian self-determination and peace with Israel however weren’t certain what the method ought to be.
“We don’t hate like the Israelis … We don’t see the Israelis as a different race. We even call them our cousins because we are similar,” mentioned Shawwa.
She remembered sitting along with her mom, an elected consultant within the Palestinian Legislative Council, the legislature fashioned below the Oslo Accords in 1996. The accords promised eventual Palestinian statehood, and Shawwa witnessed Palestinians governing themselves in a time of hope.
“It was a really democratic debate,” she remembered. “Although Hamas did not get in officially, a lot of their members were in. There were some Islamist-leaning members and Fatah, and also other factions … There was something really special about it.”
She believes Palestinians can regain this shining second, once they got here so near independence, however even she doesn’t imagine the Oslo Accords will be revived.
“The two-state solution is dead. It’s too late for it,” she mentioned.
She additionally didn’t imagine a Palestinian-Jordanian confederation might occur, one thing her grandfather as soon as proposed. Nor did she imagine Israelis have been more likely to invite the Palestinians right into a unified state encompassing the West Financial institution and Gaza.
Darwish agreed that for such a “South Africa scenario” to occur, “Israel has to feel it is unsafe, that it will lose everything unless it makes some concession.” And Hassan didn’t assume it was even fascinating. “Even the 1.5 million Palestinians [who are Israeli citizens] are third class citizens,” he mentioned.
So what’s the answer? US President Joe Biden mentioned he remained dedicated to a two-state answer.
“Gaza and the West Bank should be reunited under a single governance structure … as we all work toward a two-state solution,” he wrote in a Washington Publish opinion piece.
“What I do know is the people really want peace,” mentioned Shawwa. “We were not able to communicate this to Israel. This is the main problem.”
Darwish agreed that peace was the unifying issue.
“I would go back tomorrow, with all my children,” he mentioned. “Tomorrow.”
