100,000 Palestinians stuck in Egypt, unsure if they’ll ever return
100,000 Palestinians who fled the Gaza Strip during the war are now in Egypt. They reject Trump's offer to leave Gaza for good, but know that the Strip is a disaster zone.


Weeks after the hostage deal in Gaza, thousands of Palestinians who left for neighboring Egypt are debating when they might return home. "A lot of people are torn by a dilemma, and I'm one of them," a Palestinian named Shorouk, a Gazan who makes a living selling Palestinian food in Cairo, told Reuters.
Shuruk says she does not want people like her to be accepted as residents of other countries, outside the Palestinian territories. "We, the residents of Gaza, can only live in Gaza. If we are given residency in other countries, the goal will be lost."
There are about 100,000 Palestinians in Egypt, who say they don't know how or when they will be able to return to Gaza. They reject Trump's proposal for mass displacement. Many of them tell Reuters that they are faced with a difficult dilemma, between a desire to return to Gaza and a great fear of what awaits them in the devastated Gaza Strip, and when the reconstruction process has not even begun.
Most of them do not have a long-term residence permit to stay in Egypt and consider their stay to be temporary, surviving by trade or savings. There are those who say that they will return as soon as they have the opportunity. "There is nothing better than my country and my land," Hussein Farhat told Reuters.
But others say the personal decision is more complicated, with no home to go back to. "Even if the war were over, we still don't know our fate and no one has mentioned those who are stuck in Cairo. Are we coming back or what will happen to us? And if we don't come back, what will happen to us? Our homes are gone," said Abir Kamal, who has lived in Cairo since November 2023 and sells handmade bags with her sisters. "There's nothing, not my house, or my family, or my brothers, nothing," she said.