But Hamas will try to force them to stay, even threatening them with death if they ‘abandon’ the jihadist struggle in order to selfishly improve their private lot.
By Hugh Fitzgerald, Frontpage Magazine
Much of the world has chosen to dismiss or denounce Trump’s proposal for the Gaza Strip. That plan expresses Trump’s belief that Gaza could be turned into a highly desirable, mostly residential property, with a long and beautiful beachfront, once the rubble is removed, and the unexploded ordnance, and the other explosives with which Hamas booby-trapped so many civilian buildings, could also be collected and safely detonated.
No Gazans would be forced to leave; the plan envisions a voluntary and temporary exodus, with Gazans returning, in staggered numbers, once some part of Gaza has again been rebuilt with what Trump envisions as attractive new and solid housing.
He believes that this removal of the rubble and then the rebuilding of infrastructure will be paid for by the rich Arab states of the Gulf — Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait — with not one penny coming from the American government.
Not all Gazans appear determined to remain in the Strip; some — especially among the young — are eager to leave.
These are the people who find Trump’s proposal neither laughable nor offensive, and who hope it can be achieved. Right now, they want out. They want better lives.
But Hamas will try to force them to stay, even threatening them with death if they “abandon” the jihadist struggle in order to selfishly improve their private lot.
Now the IDF has found Hamas documents revealing the terror group’s great worry: that the young people in Gaza don’t want to remain where they are; they are sick of being used as human shields, sick of the war begun by Hamas on October 7, sick of being forced to remain among the rubble because of threats from Hamas.
They want better lives — can you blame them? — and for now, those lives are not to be found among the rubble and the live explosives of a devastated Gaza.
More on Hamas’ alarm over the growing desire of the young to better their lot by leaving Gaza can be found here:
“Foreign barbarians and assimilation: Hamas deeply concerned about Gazans emigrating, doc. reveals,” by Anna Barsky, Jerusalem Post, February 7, 2025:
“Hamas sees the emigration of young Gazans from the Gaza Strip as a great concern since this population forms the nucleus of the terror group’s strength, according to a document seized by the IDF and exposed by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (MAITIC) on Thursday.
This comes following US President Donald Trump’s announcement of his plan to relocate residents of the Gaza Strip to neighboring countries earlier this week.
According to unofficial data, approximately 250,000 young people have left Gaza since 2007, primarily due to economic conditions.
A survey revealed that 44% of young people in Gaza have considered emigrating, mainly for economic reasons.”
In Gaza, the unemployment rate has reached a staggering 80%. Like homes, businesses too, lie in ruins. The Gazans’ homes are unlivable — either reduced to rubble, or containing unexploded ordnance — and they do not have the money, or equipment, or know-how, either to clear the land or to rebuild.
The young people see no way to a better life as long as they remain in Gaza. Many of them want out.
“The document published by the MAITIC, titled “Young People Chasing an Illusion,” and written by Hamas’s Khan Yunis Brigade, a brigade within the terror group’s military wing, describes emigration as a serious threat to Hamas’s power….
The document reveals how the terror group attempted to combat this trend through religious and nationalist rhetoric, portraying emigration as a betrayal of Islamic values and the Palestinian struggle….”
Hamas is appealing to the young people’s sense of duty as Muslims. They must uphold Islamic values, which means they must remain in Gaza to fight the Infidel Zionists who are occupying Muslim land, no matter how difficult the conditions of their lives become.
They should see themselves as warriors for Islam, jihadis, with a religious duty that must outweigh all considerations of private well-being.
The young people of Gaza already know that life abroad will not be easy; they know this from the reports sent home by the 250,000 Gazans who have left Gaza ever since Hamas took over in 2007.
But they also know that abroad they will be free of the despotic and massively corrupt Hamas rulers — four of whom have stolen a total of $14 billion in aid meant for all the people in Gaza — and will at least have a chance of bettering their economic condition.
Those who dislike the religious strictures imposed by Hamas, which is, after all, the Gaza branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, will also be freer to lead the lives they want outside of Gaza.
Hamas is worried not that young Muslims leaving Gaza will have a tough time elsewhere, but that they will indeed have better lives. It wants them to remain in Gaza, to serve both as human shields, and as sources of recruits for the terror group.
Their individual hopes and dreams be damned; they are soldiers in the army of Allah, and no desertion from that army can be tolerated.
Yes, Hamas is worried, for it can just imagine Gazan young men men living abroad, and marrying Infidel (barbarian) women, and even, perhaps, raising those children outside the faith of Islam.
And how terrible it would be if those children were deprived of those schoolbooks that teach them to hate Israel and the Jews.
It would be far better if those Gazans were to remain at home, to live miserable lives but remaining as warriors for Islam.
Amusing, isn’t it, that none of the Hamas leaders live in Gaza, even as they urge other Gazans to remain in the Strip. Both Mousa abu Marzook and Khaled Meshaal have been living in Doha, Qatar, as did the late Ismail Haniyeh.
“The author reinforces his arguments by referencing a Saudi-authored booklet that warns against emigration, which was also seized by the IDF.
The booklet, based on Islamic sources, presents emigration as a spiritual and cultural threat, placing the emigrant in a constant state of alienation—torn between the desire for a comfortable life and the duty to preserve religious and cultural identity.
The booklet outlines various dangers faced by Muslim emigrants in foreign countries, including exposure to “tempting” Western culture, the health hazards in the consumption of non-halal food, exposure to diseases, pandemics, and sexually transmitted infections, alongside ongoing psychological stress and uncertainty.”
Clearly not just Hamas, but other Arabs are worried about Muslims emigrating to the “decadent” and alluring West — the booklet discouraging emigration was compiled and disseminated by the Saudis.
In a way, I hope they are successful in keeping Arabs and other Muslims at home.
For quite other reasons, I want Muslims to be discouraged from emigrating to Western lands, where their presence has proven to have made life for the indigenous non-Muslims much more unpleasant, expensive, and physically dangerous than would be the case without that large-scale Muslim presence.
Arab states have criticized Trump’s relocation plan, reaffirming the right of Gaza’s residents to remain in Gaza and their commitment to a two-state solution.
Trump made clear that his plan was purely voluntary. No Gazans would be forced to move out of Gaza. But conversely, no Gazans would be forced to remain in Gaza. They would have the freedom to choose.
He’s set out an attractive vision of their future, in a rebuilt Gaza, one that would be achieved more swiftly if the Gazans themselves get out of the way both of those conducting the cleanup of rubble and those who then rebuild the housing stock.
