Between the Borders: the Cycle of Displacement 

Words: Urvi Goyal (she/her)

CW: genocide

Over 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians have been trapped in an unrelenting cycle of displacement. Political infrastructures have reduced them to mere pawns in a geopolitical struggle, stripping them of their individuality and humanity.

The current genocide in Gaza has its roots in a long-standing battle for control over the West Bank and Gaza with Israel. The conflict has reached an unimaginable human cost since the Hamas attack on October 7th 2023. Israel has retaliated with a force that shares similarities with the Nakba of 1948 and the imposition of apartheid. Through their attacks, Israel have aimed to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians living in the West Bank – their forces marking Gaza’s streets with the words ‘leave or die,’ introducing the displacement and destruction that would follow the next 15 months of genocide. A genocide that has led to over 100,000 estimated Palestinian deaths.

Although the UNRWA and similar agencies are sending aid to Palestinians in the form of healthcare and education supplies, the political climate surrounding the genocide allows for figures like Trump to openly mock Palestinian suffering. Trump falsely claimed that the U.S. sent $50 million intended for the production of condoms in Gaza, alleging that Hamas would use them to create bombs instead – labeling them as ‘condom bombs’. While Trump trivialises the humanitarian crisis, Palestinians remain caught between survival and systematic erasure. As world leaders weaponise rhetoric, how do Palestinians find meaning in a world that treats their existence as a political inconvenience, when everything they know is in flux?

Asmaa, a Palestinian survivor, likens her experience of displacement to anaesthesia during a surgery – a state between life and death, consciousness and oblivion. Her words embody the limbo in which Palestinians exist, oscillating between the destruction of their homeland and the uncertain nature of their future. While Trump calls to ‘clear out Gaza’, dehumanizing its people as if they were animals to be herded wherever political powers see fit, how do displaced families balance on the strings of hope when ceasefires are as fragile as the homes they have lost? 

This uncertainty extends beyond political recognition: rather, it becomes a question of Palestinians’ fundamental right to live, to belong, and to return. Israeli control over border crossings means that Palestinians are unable to escape the genocide, increasing their isolation and Gaza’s perception as ‘an open-air prison’. 

However, despite the political and public reduction of their identity, the people of Gaza continue to assert their humanity through means of education. Bisan Owda, a journalist and filmmaker, has documented the resistance of Palestinians as they fight for their right to exist. One of her reports follows the establishment of a makeshift school in Deir al-Balah, where Ikram Talaat Ahmed transformed her living tent into a classroom, offering 200 displaced students a space for education. For Ahmed and the other teachers, this relationship of learning and teaching is not just a means of academic survival but an act of defiance – a refusal to let war dictate their lives.

Ahmed narrates her difficult experience of opening a school during the genocide despite their struggle for a lack of space and materials, combating the extensive heat and infestation of the displacement camps. ‘This is the story of our great loss caused by the Israeli occupation’ she states, ‘and my resistance to the occupation through education’. Ahmed represents how learning and resistance take place between the lines of struggle and resilience; Palestinians are asserting their right to a future that war seeks to deny them. 

While displacement affects all Palestinians, women face specific challenges that reshape their sense of home and identity. In Gaza’s religious society, privacy and religious observance are central to many women’s lives, yet displacement has stripped them of both. The destruction of their homes and religious spaces has stripped women of places where they could practice their faith freely. Many are unable to find cloth to use as head scarves or separate quarters, forcing them into a reality where their religious expression is compromised. 

In a show of unimaginable strength, Palestinian women are forced to fight to find stability and routine for the sake of the children they care for. Many women during the genocide spend their days looking after children, whether they are their own or not, and their sense of hope and innocence remains intertwined with the safety and nourishment of children. Though the political sphere does not account for the lives of these Palestinians living through the paradoxical nature of genocide – marked by the stagnancy of political negotiations and the chaos of displacement – they continue to find ways to survive in a climate designed to ensure they don’t. Palestinians embody resilience, turning their suffering into strength and asserting their unwavering right to live and belong. 

Sources:

https://www.dni.gov/nctc/ftos/hamas_fto.html

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/tens-of-thousands-return-to-shattered-northern-gaza-for-the-first-time-since-the-wars-earliest-days#:~:text=Israel%20says%20it%20has%20killed,health%20risks%20as%20they%20return.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/30/is-the-us-sending-50m-in-condoms-to-gaza-as-trump-claims

https://gazaunlocked.org/posts/under-shadow-loss