Donald Trump or no, Gazans are leaving anyway

As I've written several times before, there will be a large population movement out of Gaza. This isn't an assessment or prophecy, but an existing fact. Around one hundred thousand people left Gaza from the start of the war until the closure of the Rafah crossing, and the ceasefire conditions allow for nearly 8,000 more to leave. In both cases, Israel and Egypt imposed heavy restrictions and made exit difficult, and if the gates open freely, the numbers will be much larger.

This fact isn't related to any political plan of any side, but to a harsh and real physical reality: as Trump said, the Gaza Strip is destroyed. Entire towns have been erased from the face of the earth, and in large cities like Rafah (which before the war had close to 200,000 people) half of the buildings are completely destroyed. According to geo-analyst Ben Zion Makles, about 35% of buildings in the Strip (60,000) simply don't exist anymore, and among the remaining 65%, many are uninhabitable – tilting to the side, without walls, without plumbing, and at risk of collapse.

Hundreds of thousands of Gazans – perhaps even 50% of the Strip's population – are homeless, and will remain so even if the war ends. Even if enormous resources are directed to rehabilitating the Strip and everyone works at full speed, it will take many years – perhaps a whole decade – to build homes for everyone.

And the simple fact is that when choosing between spending many years as homeless in a war-torn area with destroyed infrastructure and only basic supplies, versus migrating to a peaceful place with a much higher standard of living – many people choose the second option. Many. Even if it means bribing officers, jumping over fences, or cramming into rickety boats.

As noted, this migration has already begun, and in fact, it started long before the war, since even then living under Hamas rule wasn't exactly a walk in the park. This isn't related to any political plan or any country's "agreement." In recent decades, tens of millions of migrants worldwide have crossed borders without relevant countries' consent, in a thousand and one different ways.

Millions of Syrians migrated to Jordan and Lebanon and Turkey, and from there to Europe, and Iraqis and Afghans and Iranians also found ways to get where they wanted, and Africans from the center of the continent moved to its north and from there to Europe.

The idea that any effort is needed to make this happen in Gaza is disconnected from reality. A massive effort is needed to make it not happen. Migration from Gaza stopped only because currently, the reality is that a Gazan who approaches the Egyptian or Israeli border gets shot in the head. Anything less than that won't succeed in stopping this migration, which stems from Gaza's material reality and not from any politician's plans in Israel or the US.

Of course, it's preferable for countries to agree to absorb population in an orderly manner and for them to arrive legally. Of course, it's better for all this to be done through Egypt. I also think it's quite likely that this will happen, to some extent.

But if not, then alongside destroying Iran's nuclear program and eliminating Hamas, opening the possibility to migrate out of the Strip should be at the top of the government's priorities in the coming months, even if it means establishing a mechanism that would enable organized and supervised passage of migrants from Gaza to Israel's sea and air ports. Such migration deprives Hamas of a potential recruitment pool, severely damages its prestige, and creates a space where the IDF finds it much more comfortable to fight.

So there are many open questions: how many will migrate, where will they migrate to, when will it start, through which border will they pass, will it be carried out in a coordinated and orderly manner or not, and so on. But there's one question that there's no point in discussing anymore, and that's whether there will be migration out of Gaza. Yes, there will be.

Elad Nahshon is a PhD student at Bar Ilan University, studying the political and social history of Zionism and the State of Israel.