Why Can't Gazans Leave?

[miniaturepixieonacid]

There is probably a very simple answer to this that I missed in early news reports.

It's so awful watching News Feeds that essentially seem to say that Gazans are having to move around in a cat and mouse game with the IDF to avoid bombs but have nowhere left to go.

I am very aware that war has casualties and other countries are at war. I am not necessarily saying that IDF should stop fighting.

But this war is different in that all civilians seem to be trapped. Normally war creates refugees. Ukrainians, Afghans, Syrians - they were able to get out. Not all, I know, but movement was an option and it kept civilian casualties down. Why can't Gazans leave Gaza?

The occupation is the oppression. I've been there myself, in Occupied East Jerusalem. If I had been born there and lived under the constant oppression of the occupation, I would not see the occupiers as a legitimate state either. As an outsider, I recognize Israel as a state from a legal perspective, but do I think it's legitimate, as in fair and just? No, absolutely not, in the same way any occupying force is not legitimate.

If they had accepted the UN proposal as Israel did even though it gave only 20% land to the 30% Jews it would have been peaceful. Instead, Palestine started a war which they then lost. As victor, Israel was able to get a better settlement. Ironically the UN plan which Palestine rejected is now seen as the gold standard for what is Palestine that Israel supposedly took from them. And you’re still ignoring the Jews that were displaced too. Jewish settlements thousands of years old were abandoned in the name of creating 2 cohesive, stable states.

When you listen to the government this is very much their narrative. "We wanted to live in peace with them!" (ie for them to voluntarily leave) "but they were terrorists" (ie wanted to stay) "so we had no choice to kill them because they hate Jewish people!"

I have never thought of Hamas as good people or leaders
But it's clear to me now that Israel will stop at nothing to get rid of Hamas and will not look at the cost of human life in Gaza in the process
Even when the war is over Gaza will be largely uninhabitable
Did you see the Quran Ayah they air dropped to the citizens yesterday? I feel that is foreboding that there is worst to come. Its almost psychopathic, I would have thought it was a scene out of some sort of dystopian hunger games, but it is the reality

Which is why I think it's time to save and get out whoever can be saved as the other inevitable is death
I don't see any future for a two state solution although that is one thing I would gladly be proven wrong over

To be fair, that is also Hamas’s narrative that they keep shouting about

”Hi, Hamas here, we are terrorists, we don’t want to live in peace we want all the Jews gone”
”I can’t believe the Israeli government thinks Hamas are terrorists who don’t want peace and want to kill all the Jews”

I know people will disagree with me on this.
But for me preserving life should come over preserving land
The Gazans will always be oppressed, whether Hamas is ruling or anyone else
Look at the way the lives of those in the occupied territories is.
And how over times its getting worse and worse for them
What use is a US visa ban when majority of the settlers are not even charged for their offences.
What sort of life is that
And I don't see it changing. Not after yesterday when a further 1700 homes for settlers have been approves
It is clear that even though it is likely that Hamas will be removed, the current Israeli government have no intention of allowing a Palestinian state to form

We need to stop comparing Israel, which is supposedly the gold standard of a civil state, with Hamas, who are a proscribed terrorist group. Of course we should expect higher standards from the former.
To be fair I don't know that much about Hamas, when I have been there I didn't hear much about them and I certainly don't recognize what posters on here are saying about how they terrorise, coerce and tyranize Gazans. From what I've read though of their most recent charter I don't see they are saying that they want to kill all Jews though. They want freedom from the occupation of Israel, and I'm sure most Gazans want that too.

That should say the Gazans will always be oppressed under Israeli occupation no matter who is ruling, amd you can look at it how you want and frame it how you want but Gaza is to some extent occupied. The people there are severely restricted.
Israel, under this government will never allow the Palestinians the right of self determination.

@cauliflowerwaterfall perfect! So next time the homeless person in your town asks for just 20% of your house, just a bedroom you know, give it to them! Don't you dare refuse because then they'll beat you up and claim 75% of your house because they won the fight. Then they'll have you live in the shed and give you a bit of food and water and call you ungrateful. Have a peaceful day!

Well you are absolutely wrong about that. They are genocidal fundamentalist terrorists, and proudly so. They are Holocaust deniers. They are a proscribed terrorist organisation.

One bit of audio published after October 7th is of a terrorist Whatsapping his family from the phone of a woman he murdered. He sounds elated, “Look how many Jews I killed with my own hands! Your son killed Jews! Mum, your son is a hero!”

”From the river to the sea” means all of Israel. They want one state, only Palestine, with no Jews. They are explicit about it, it’s not a hidden agenda.

I mean… you don’t have to take it from me, take it from them:
https://www.adl.org/resources/news/hamas-their-own-words

You’re being facetious but if a persecuted minority accepts a deal to take up less space than the majority in exchange for not being a persecuted minority anymore, and the majority say “no - even less space than us is still too much space - we think you should have none at all.” I think that’s a sad indictment on those who persecuted them in the first place.

Do you have an independent source for that ridiculous comment ?

you really do need to educate yourself and stop spouting statements like this. I can’t even be bothered to put you right.

For anyone wanting to see the real picture in Gaza, follow these brave photo-journalists on X
Hind Khoudary
MoTaz
Ali Jahdalla

@Livinginanotherworld which bit do you want a source for?
Individually those facts are right.

I've been thinking we need to offer asylum for a while now. I know it means giving in in some way, but I think it's better to save who we can. There are petitions on petition parliament UK. Don't know if they have much effect, but it's one way to get politicians to discuss the issues.

There’s no denying the Palestinians have been oppressed and suffered greatly, but the narrative that Israel was built on the strategic oppression of an indigenous people by a tiny minority (all ethnic Jews are indigenous to Israel btw, not a tiny minority of them) is imposing a Western centric/white colonial narrative and viewpoint upon the situation in order to reinforce an antisemitic ideology and bias.

Conflating the occupied territories as they currently exist to the establishment of the state of Israel as all part of the same colonialist endeavour bolsters Westernised, ideological/political anti-Israel rhetoric and seeks to reinforce division and opposition, rather than mutual interest and co-operation. Israel exists and it’s not going anywhere, the legitimacy of Israel and the legitimacy (or lack of, really) of the occupied territories are two different things. The excessive focus on Israel’s right to exist and the resentment that it does only serves to overshadow and distract from the reality of the current situation and work that needs to be done for the Palestinian people.

If the welfare and freedom of the Palestinian people really was Hamas, their associates and backers’ first concern, it’s not clear how they thought launching a savage and depraved large scale attack on Israel was going to further this cause with a workable, co-operative solution. Hamas and the other terrorist groups in Gaza and the West Bank were not born out of the despair of oppression, they were mostly born of a violent internal Palestinian power struggle, financed by external interests and corruption. They’re only really in alignment with regards to their hatred of Jews and their desire for control of the Palestinian people and territories.

Anyway, I agree with @Parkingt111 that at this point, preserving life is the most important thing. The Gazans who want to leave should be allowed to, and there should be greater international pressure and support to allow this to happen, coupled with a guarantee that they will be able to return when the conflict is over.

To be fair I don't know that much about Hamas, when I have been there I didn't hear much about them and I certainly don't recognize what posters on here are saying about how they terrorise, coerce and tyranize Gazans. From what I've read though of their most recent charter I don't see they are saying that they want to kill all Jews though.

When you have been where? Gaza?
They have reaffirmed their statement recently. On the back of raping, murdering and mutilating men, women and children.

Oh those cuddly terrorists.

@Parkingt111 I agree with what you are saying and I am hoping (in the interim) the surrounding (particularly Uber wealthy) countries step up.
Qatar?

@Parkingt111 One issue with taking refugees from Gaza is that they won't be able to return, though. If the government of Israel continues to be right wing I think that's likely. This also means that the plan, which some current politicians support, of taking some parts of Lebanon and Syria may cause further refugees. At this point we'd all be looking at major destabilisation of the region and a refugee crisis. So I suppose these kind of issues are what countries may be considering.

@stomachameleon uber wealthy Qatar have provided vast amounts of humanitarian aid far in excess of any other country - they are also medically evacuating 1500 injured gazans and looking to accommodate gazan war orphans

Have a look at a map and see how far Qatar is from Gaza - how many planes and how long do you think it would take to move any significant fraction of 1 million people

Nearer arab states are almost all universally poor

If you are going by that then Southern England should be occupied by Rome 🙄
Israel were given some land in Palestine by the west ( who gave the west authority to do that) from which they have consistently grabbed and stolen more and more. They now illegally occupied land in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, and have total control over the lives of the people of Gaza.
Israel have never offered a “very good deal”. They want the Palestinians out into Sinai so they can have all of Gaza and the potential oil fields of that coast. This was always their plan, they unfortunately got an excuse to execute it on Oct 7th.

You can't fly people out of Gaza.

The Gaza International Airport was shut down amid Israeli-Palestinian fighting in 2001, barely two years after it opened. Israel bombed the radar station and control tower on 4 December 2001 and bulldozers cut the runway on 10 January 2002, rendering the airport inoperable. Today it lies in ruins.

Also, most Israeli settlers are from Europe and the US….it never was their homeland, they might argue historically but they weren’t born there, the families weren’t born there. Netanyahu is Polish, his right hand man is Polish. Most of the IDF were born in the US.
If you applied the historic right to a homeland and applied it everywhere, the the whole worlds borders would look very different. The original Jews and Arabs who lived in Palestine were happy to live side by side as neighbours, then 75 years ago it all changed. Oh and it was Palestine, my father served there, I have his maps and photographs from the 1940’s.

Will this prove to be the tipping point in the 'Leave or Die' dilemma for more than a million ordainary palestinians in gaza?

Israel accused Palestinian militants on Thursday of having launched rockets from within a zone in the southern Gaza Strip where it has said civilians fleeing the now eight-week-old war can find safety.

This is the hugely overcrowded safe zone of Al Mawasi in southern gaza