‘I don’t care who’s president there. I just want my kids to survive in Gaza’
Palestinians at the site of an Israeli airstrike on an UNRWA school in Nuseirat refugee camp, central Gaza Strip, October 14, 2024. (Ali Hassan/Flash90)
Decrying Biden’s catastrophic legacy, Gazans harbored little hope for a Harris presidency — but they’re not enthused about Trump’s second term either.
by Mohammed R. Mhawish, a Palestinian journalist and writer from Gaza, currently living in exile. He is a contributor to the book "A Land With A People — Palestinians and Jews Confront Zionism" (Monthly Review Press Publication, 2021).
The news of Donald Trump’s election victory was received in Gaza with weary resignation. After more than a year of war, displacement, and starvation, Palestinians in the Strip have stopped expecting anything from American leaders — except more of the same. Whether it’s Trump, Joe Biden, or Kamala Harris, hope doesn’t register with us anymore. Instead, each new leader in Washington reinforces the same painful reality: unconditional military aid for Israel and policies that leave Gaza smoldering.
Dr. Rabaa Al-Dreimly, a media studies professor currently displaced in southern Gaza, remembers Trump’s first term vividly. His decision to relocate the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem felt “like a curtain falling on the illusion of peace,” she recalls. “It was a clear sign that the United States didn’t intend to act as a neutral mediator, stripping away even the pretense of concern for us.”
For Al-Dreimly, each policy during Trump’s first term — from the embassy move and the “Deal of the Century” to the unending diplomatic and political shielding of Israel — made it clear that the United States wasn’t just abandoning us, but erasing us. When she looks around at Gaza’s ruins today, she sees what years of U.S. support for Israeli violence have done. “Whoever sits in the White House doesn’t change what Gaza lives,” she says, her voice bearing a heavy weight.
Abdul Hadi Aoukal, a Gaza-based political analyst, feels similarly disheartened. For him, Trump’s pledge to end the war rings hollow; it sounds like another chapter in an old story of Washington’s deception and neglect of Palestinian suffering. “They act like we’re invisible,” Aoukal says.
And the people of Gaza know that, in all likelihood, this new chapter will end the same way: with more bombings, more loss, and more empty promises. But nor did Gazans harbor any real hope for a Harris presidency. The vice president has repeatedly backed Israel’s right to defend itself, and we know exactly what that really means: killing our children and destroying our homes without any accountability.
President Biden and Vice President Harris meet with national security advisers before a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, October 10, 2023. (Adam Schultz/Wikimedia Commons)
As Biden continued to supply American bombs to Israel’s war machine, Harris was at his side, doing nothing to stop it. “She endorsed these policies,” Aoukal affirms. “Her promises of change were never truly sincere.”
‘The rhetoric of peace is empty to us’
For 55-year-old Salwa Al-Louh, who is currently displaced with her family in the Al-Mawasi area of southern Gaza, the change in American leadership stirs something less than hope and more like tired desperation. She recalls years of U.S. leaders promising peace only to leave Gaza in ruins. “Every American president says they’ll bring peace,” she murmurs, “but each one has looked away.”
After seeing this pattern repeat so many times, Al-Louh has learned to rely only on her family and neighbors, finding strength in small daily acts of care. But as the war drags on and the winter approaches, living in the tent camp — with its rampant illness and biting cold — is growing more unbearable by the day. She dreams only of returning to her home in Al-Shati refugee camp, in northern Gaza. “We’ve had enough death and destruction,” she says. “I want my grandchildren to grow up without fear.”
Khaled Aslih, a Palestinian father of three in southern Gaza, tucks his children into bed each night without any assurance that they’ll be safe by morning. “With Biden, the [Israeli] attacks have only gotten worse,” he laments.
As far as Aslih is concerned, every American promise to end the war is just empty talk — words that don’t change the cold fear he and his family feel as they huddle together, praying that the walls around them will hold up for one more night. “They may say they want peace, but it’s American-made bombs falling on our homes,” he adds.
Palestinians inspect the extensive damage after an Israeli airstrike on the Al-Mawasi area west of Khan Younis city in the southern Gaza Strip, November 13, 2024. (Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)
Nour Baraka, a widow raising four children in a displacement camp, responds to Trump’s victory with an exhausted sigh. “I don’t care who is president there,” she says. “I only want my children to survive.”