In fact, that’s the very reason the US supported the creation of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East ( Unrwa) in 1949. Though its purpose today is very different, it was originally intended as a tool to permanently resettle the Palestinians outside Palestine.

Palestinian Rashid Mansour, who witnessed the 1948 Nakba with his family, speaks about his refusal to leave Gaza, after the recent statements by U.S. President Donald Trump, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip,

The Oslo negotiations of the 1990s rejected the notion of removing Palestinians from Gaza. In fact, keeping the refugees in Gaza was central to the premise of a two-state solution. At the same time, questions over the right of refugees to return to their original homelands in what is now Israel were shelved.

General view of the rubble of houses and buildings destroyed during the Israeli offensive, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip January 29, 2025.