“Israel will invade further – with more ease”: Gaza fears Trump presidency | Features News

For 13 months, Ahmed Jarad has lived with the faint hope that one day he would be able to return to his home in Beit Lahiya, a village in northern Gaza.

But on Wednesday, as former US President Donald Trump announced his triumphant return to the White House after a close race against Vice President Kamala Harris, Jarad expressed his dream of returning to his hometown, which is currently sealed off from Israel and its stranded population South was destroyed.

The 43-year-old left his home exactly a year ago – in November 2023 – and fled to al-Mawasi, west of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. A month earlier, Israel began its war on Gaza after Hamas, the political and military group that rules the Gaza Strip, led an attack on army outposts and villages in southern Israel that killed 1,139 people and captured more than 250 were taken.

Since then, Israel has subjected Gaza to almost relentless bombardment and ground attacks. More than 43,000 Palestinians have been killed – thousands more are missing and presumed dead under the rubble – while almost the entire enclave's population of 2.3 million has been displaced.

Israeli officials claim the war is necessary to eliminate Hamas, which is classified as a “terror group” by most Western countries. But Palestinians, the United Nations and human rights advocates point out that most of the war's victims are women and children.

Jarad said he was sure Israel's brutality would only get worse if Trump, who enjoyed a close relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his first presidency, is sworn in again as the leader of the world's most powerful superpower.

“Trump and Netanyahu are an evil alliance against the Palestinians and our fate will be very difficult, not only in the fateful issues but also in our daily concerns,” Jarad told Al Jazeera from his crumbling tent in al-Mawasi, where he now lives with his wife and five children.

Netanyahu, who is under pressure both domestically and internationally to end the war that has spread to Lebanon and threatens to escalate into a full-scale conflict between Israel and Iran, was quick to congratulate Trump after his victory on Wednesday had.

Netanyahu called Trump's election “the greatest comeback in history” and described Trump's return as a “new beginning for America” ​​and a “powerful recommitment to the great alliance between Israel and America.”

During Trump's first four-year term as president from 2016 to 2020, the US embassy in Israel was moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem – a significant step in the eyes of the Israeli government. Aid to Palestinians has been cut – particularly to UNRWA, the United Nations' Palestinian refugee agency, which designated Israel a terrorist group just days before the US election.

Despite international condemnation, the Trump administration also overlooked the construction of illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank and brokered the “Abraham Accords,” which led to several Arab countries normalizing their relations with Israel.

Since the war on Gaza began in October last year, Democratic President Joe Biden has steadfastly supported Israel, continuing to send military aid and reaffirming Israel's “right to protect itself.”

But relations between Netanyahu and Biden have deteriorated somewhat as regional tensions worsened and none of the ceasefire agreements that the Americans helped negotiate came to fruition. Netanyahu now says a Trump presidency could usher in a new chapter in Israeli-American relations.

Like many Palestinians, especially those trapped in Gaza, Jarad fears this will come at their expense.

“This is a sad day for the Palestinians,” he said desperately. “Trump will support Netanyahu’s free hand over the possibility of returning settlements to the Gaza Strip and even the displacement of large numbers of Palestinians outside Gaza.”

“We had hoped to return to the north and now all our hopes have been dashed,” he said.

Trump and Netanyahu: “A game of peas”

Zakia Hilal, a 70-year-old doctor, has resorted to humor to survive the devastation of the Gaza war. She listened to news about the US elections on the radio with her husband, children and grandchildren – all gathered in her tent in al-Mawasi.

As soon as they heard the news that Trump had won, they shouted, “Two peas on the same path,” referring to Netanyahu and Trump. “Our situation wasn’t bad enough? Trump had to come to finish it,” she said sarcastically.

Hilal, originally from Rafah in southern Gaza, was forced to leave her home in May when Israeli troops began a ground operation on May 6 into the southernmost part of the enclave, where most of the population had sought refuge.

Since then, the Rafah border crossing into Egypt, the main gate through which humanitarian aid normally enters, has been closed. Humanitarian aid entering the besieged enclave through other smaller border crossings has fallen to its lowest level since the start of the war.

“We are certainly facing a very difficult time. “What lies ahead could be even worse than what we have experienced so far,” Hilal told Al Jazeera. “It is true that American governments have no differences in their support for Israel, but some are stricter and more intense than others, like Trump.”

In his victory speech in Florida, Trump said he would “stop wars,” something many Arab Americans blamed the Biden administration for failing to do. According to reports in the Times of Israel, Trump has raised concerns about the possibility of continued conflict in Gaza. In July, he reportedly told Netanyahu at a meeting that the dispute should ideally be resolved by the time he takes office in January 2025.

“I told Bibi (Netanyahu), we don’t want endless wars, especially ones that drag America into them,” Trump said, referring to the private conversation. How he plans to “end” this matter is unclear and strikes fear into Palestinians who spoke to Al Jazeera on Wednesday.

Jehad Malaka, an international relations researcher at the Gaza-based research organization the Palestinian Planning Center, does not expect Trump's incoming administration to differ significantly from Biden's in terms of support for Israel.

Speaking to Al Jazeera from the tent he shares with his family in al-Mawasi, where they fled the northern Gaza Strip, Malaka said the Biden administration did nothing for the Palestinians during the war and neither did any of the decisions reversed that were made during Trump's first presidency.

“Trump uses rough tools and Biden and the Democrats use soft tools, but the politics are the same,” he said.

He added: “Biden made no decision in favor of the Palestinians and was unable to achieve a ceasefire.” He did not change the reality of his predecessor Trump's decisions at all. The positions of the two governments towards Israel are equal and identical, and they place its interests above all other considerations.”

However, Malaka said he did not believe Trump would advocate the forced expulsion of Gaza Palestinians from the entire enclave and hoped the new president would perhaps end the war more quickly, albeit extremely painfully.

“Given Trump's power to exert pressure and influence on Netanyahu, he may be able to open a horizon for a partial solution to the Palestinian issue, and he is able to exert pressure on Netanyahu, while Biden failed to exert pressure for a single day “To exercise peace and quiet,” he said.

Ahmed Fayyad, 45, an independent researcher on Israeli affairs who has sought refuge in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, is less optimistic. He said he believes Trump's influence will be completely harmful to Palestinians as a whole and to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in particular.

“Trump's election just means that Netanyahu will continue his plans to invade Gaza and displace its people, but with less pressure and more ease,” said Fayyed, who fled to Deir el-Balah almost a year ago to escape the intense bombing in the east of Khan Younis. said.

Trump is “a more dominant figure” whose “influence across all parties would mean that Netanyahu gets away with what he always wanted, which was to conquer Gaza,” he said.

“With the weakened Palestinian front and the absence of any Arab unity and solidarity, the entire Palestinian cause faces its worst threat yet.”

This piece was published in collaboration with Egab.