President Donald Trump's peace plan for Gaza is being praised by the outside world, but the perspective and rights of refugees are conspicuous by their absence. That the same president who talks about peace for Gaza describes people on the run as "an attack on Western countries and their borders" rings hollow for Palestinians hoping to return home, writes FUF's Brussels correspondent Signe M. Andersson.
It is October 13th and tears are mixed with cheers as the buses roll in. After 738 days in captivity, the hostages are reunited with their families. The first step of US President Donald Trump's 20-point peace plan between Israel and Hamas. In exchange, Israel has released over two thousand Palestinian prisoners. World leaders praise Trump's diplomatic triumph. It is well known that the president likes to be praised.
- We gave you weapons and you have used them well!, says Trump when he speaks before the Israeli parliament same day.
The words ring harshly against the backdrop of 68,000 Palestinians dead as a result of the war. Further millions People have been driven into exile. People who have become part of the “uncontrolled migration crisis” – the “invasion” that Trump described to the UN General Assembly just weeks earlier.
Meanwhile, just an hour's flight from the UN headquarters in New York, a different reality prevails. In Lebanon's refugee camps, generations of Palestinian children are growing up behind rusty gates. According to UNRWA There are about half a million registered Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon. The country's representatives point out that their capacity is limited and have called for greater international solidarity. Many never go to school. Young people are desperately looking for work, and families live in a limbo where every day becomes a fight for the most basic.
– At first I was happy that they can breathe a little – that the children can eat. But I'm afraid that everything will disappear in a second, says Sabrine when she talks to Sveriges Radio from the Bourj al-Barajneh refugee camp in Beirut.
She described her fear that the ceasefire in Gaza would become as fragile as the one in Lebanon, where Israeli attacks still occur almost daily. In the same camp, Raghad al-Arabji sings a song that tells of the longing to return to Gaza. To never again be called a refugee. She dreams that the people there will be allowed to stay in their country. That they will never have to live like she did.
A violent “peace”
Days after Sabrine and Raghad's interview, violence has flared up again. According to Reuters Hamas has been given an indefinite green light by Trump to maintain security in Gaza – something that has quickly translated into deadly violence and public executions of suspected collaborators with Israel.
On Sunday, several media outlets reported on new Israeli airstrikes after allegations of shelling against the military on the same day. Among other things, against the Brueij refugee camp in central Gaza. The Rafah crossing into Egypt was completely closed in connection with this - a new blockade of the temporary exit for civilians and entry for humanitarian aid.
In February, Trump suggested that Gaza should to be emptied and that the US would take over the Gaza Strip; “own it”. The entire population would be received by Egypt and Jordan. A big contrast from when Trump described migration as “the death of Western Europe” at the UN rostrum. A message that We Western countries should not accept refugees, but you should.
The current plan no longer proposes the evacuation of Gaza. But it offers neither freedom from occupation nor a move towards a two-state solution. 90 percent of Gaza's population now lives as internal refugees, according to UNRWA – millions of people trapped in a bombed-out country.
What happens to the Palestinians who have fled the country has not yet been clarified. It is a international law for refugees to return – but this has been continuously met with resistance in previous peace negotiations.
- Israeli Arabs pose a threat to the demographics and existence of the Jewish state, to Netanyahu at a conference in 2003.
About seven million Jews and two million Christian and Muslim Palestinians are citizens of today's Israel. Outside, more than fourteen million Palestinians live in exile. Refugees born outside the country are denied the right to return to Israel, the West Bank or Gaza - even if their families have lived there for generations. They are neither granted citizenship nor the opportunity to inherit any legal status, and cannot obtain a residence permit by marrying an Israeli citizen. This means permanent statelessness for many, according to Human Rights Watch. A refugee status that is inherited for generations. “Israel is a state for Jews and only them,” Netanyahu declared in 2019.
When Donald Trump describes refugees as a threat to the West, he marks a clear shift in political rhetoric. Instead of shared responsibility and disarmament, the emphasis is now on borders, self-determination: “Peace through strength” – as Trump himself described it in the Israeli parliament.
Meanwhile, everyday life continues in the refugee camps, far from the White House palace. There live people who have lost everything, but who are still waiting for the responsibility that the world promised to share.
As the lavish praise for Trump's peace plan fades, the question remains: How long can the world talk about peace while turning a blind eye to those still fleeing war?
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