What Do Young Gazans Want?

ByHugh Fitzgerald | Feb 12, 2025

Hamas has angrily rejected Trump’s proposal to move the Gazans out of the Strip, while what he accurately calls a “demolition site” full of rubble can be cleared away. The Palestinian Authority, with slightly less venom, has done the same. Trump had suggested that the Gazans could be resettled in both Egypt and Jordan, but both Egyptian General El-Sisi and King Abdullah of Jordan have also rejected the plan. El-Sisi says that Egypt will not take in any Gazans, and Abdullah has agreed to take in 2,000 children. But what about the people of Gaza? Do they all reject the Trump plan? Are they determined to remain in Gaza?

An opinion poll taken in Gaza before the war broke out on October 7, 2023 provides a surprising look at what young Gazans, just starting their adult lives, think about leaving Gaza. More on the results of that poll can be found here: “Even before the war: 44% of young Gazans considered emigrating – opinion,” by Itamar Marcus, Jerusalem Post, February 10, 2025:

The question being asked today around the world is whether President Donald Trump’s plan to resettle Gazans in other countries can succeed. Judging by a poll taken just prior to the war, before much of Gaza was destroyed, Trump’s proposal is reasonable.

The poll by the top Palestinian polling agency, the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, found that a full 44% of Gazan youth between the ages of 18-29 were considering emigrating. Nearly a third (31%) of the entire population considered emigrating.

Gazans’ “most preferred destination for immigration is Turkey, followed by Germany, Canada, the United States, and Qatar,” the poll found.

We certainly don’t want more Muslims, especially not the Palestinians, settling in the Western countries, bringing in their mental baggage not only their animus toward all non-Muslims, but also a special hatred of Jews. After all, these Gazans have been raised all their lives in what the Israelis call Hamastan, taught by members of the ruling terror group from an early age, in UNRWA schoolbooks and on Palestinian children’s television programs.

But both Turkey and Qatar, being Muslim countries in the region, make more sense as possible destinations for Palestinians wanting to leave Gaza. Other possibilities should include the rich Arab states of the Gulf, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Kuwait, that could so easily pay for the building of new housing for the Gazans desiring resettlement.

The largest percentage said they want to leave for economic reasons; second and third reasons are “political” or educational opportunities. The fourth reason is security, and the fifth is corruption….

Do you blame them? Gaza is, as Trump has said, a demolition site,” where it’s impossible to conduct a normal life. 80% of Gazans in this age group are unemployed, with no prospect of things improving. The only jobs that are available are menial in nature. Before October 7, 2023 19,000 Gazans would travel to Israel every day for work, at good wages; that employment stopped on that day and has not been renewed.

Before the war, 44% of young Gazans were considering leaving the Strip. Now, after sixteen months of war, the entire Strip has been reduced to rubble, the result of Hamas’ practice of hiding its men and weapons in civilian structures, including apartments, offices, schools, mosques, and parts of hospitals, the percentage of those not just considering, but desperate to leave, must surely have skyrocketed.

Hamas does not care one whit about the desires, or the wellbeing, of the people in Gaza. Just four leaders of Hamas — Moussa Abu Marzouk, Khaled Meshaal, the late Ismail Haniyeh and the late Yahya Sinwar — have stolen a total of $14 billion in aid money. The fewer the number of people remaining in Gaza, the less attention will be given to the Strip, and the less aid money will be provided. The PA, which hopes to be put in charge of Gaza “the day after” the Israel-Hamas war ends with what the PA knows will be the complete destruction of Hamas, for the same reason doesn’t want the kind of drastic diminution in Gaza’s population that Trump’s plan envisions.

People leaving Gaza will face threats from Hamas, intent on forcing them to stay. How would Trump safeguard those who want to leave? He doesn’t want American boots on the ground, but by that he means American troops fighting wars. What about setting up, with the IDF, offices along the Gaza-Israel border that would serve as intake centers for Gazans wanting to leave the Strip under the protection of the Israelis and Americans, safe from possible interference or retribution from Hamas?

Trump’s plan for resettling Gazans where their lives will be better has now been denounced by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, rejected by the heads of Egypt and Jordan, and dismissed by the 22 members of the Arab League not because his plan makes no sense, but because it does.