Palestinian and Lebanese civilians are bracing for more devastation once Donald Trump begins his second term as president of the United States in January.
While millions of Trump supporters celebrate his victory, many in the Middle East are looking on with trepidation.
In Gaza, the occupied West Bank and Lebanon, there are fears the loyal ally of Israel will embolden its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and far-right coalition government to escalate regional conflicts and destroy any possibility of Palestinian self-determination.
“I have no trust in America,” said Abu Ali, an 87-year-old in Gaza who has been uprooted from his home like most people there. “I’m expecting the war in Gaza to get even worse [under Trump].”
Mother of the Palestinian Shawqi Asous cries as Shawqi was killed in an Israeli strike in the village of Al-Shuhada, near Jenin in the Israeli-occupied West Bank November 5, 2024. REUTERS/Raneen Sawafta TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
A grieving mother comforts a boy after her son was killed in an Israeli attack in the village of al-Shuhada near Jenin in the Israeli-occupied West Bank [Raneen Sawafta/Reuters]
US President Joe Biden’s outgoing administration has supported Israel in its campaign in Gaza.
Since the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, during which 1,139 people were killed and 250 taken captive, Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza – using US weapons – has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians and uprooted almost the entire population of 2.3 million people.
Palestinians there fear Trump will now greenlight plans to expel them from the strip.
The Republican president-elect has accused Biden, a Democrat, of restraining Israel in Gaza and made a vague promise to help Israel to “finish the job” if re-elected.
“I don’t know if the situation will improve under Trump. He might just [allow Israel] to deport us all [from Gaza] instead of killing us,” Abu Mohamad said with a hint of sarcasm from a displacement camp in Gaza.
Abu Ali believes Palestinians are at the mercy of whoever holds power in the US.
As a survivor of the Nakba (“catastrophe”), the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians by Zionist militias during the creation of Israel in 1948, he said he has witnessed several US presidents support Israeli atrocities against his people.
He expects that trend to continue under Trump and stressed that neither the Nakba nor Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza should be referred to as a “war”.
“There are no wars [between Israel and Palestine],” he told Al Jazeera. “It wasn’t a war then. And this isn’t a war [in Gaza]. It’s a genocide.”
A Palestinian woman who lost members of her family in an Israeli strike reacts upon seeing their bodies at the Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on November 3, 2024.
A Palestinian woman who lost members of her family in an Israeli strike grieves near their bodies at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on November 3, 2024 [Bashar Taleb/AFP]
In Lebanon, many people expect Trump to maintain or increase support for Israel’s war effort.Israel claims to be battling the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, yet observers accuse Israel of waging a war against the country’s Shia community.
In Lebanon, political posts are allocated proportionally based on the country’s religious makeup. The president is always a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim and the speaker of parliament a Shia Muslim.
Since Lebanon’s civil war, which lasted from 1975 to 1990, Hezbollah has consolidated control over the Shia community by mixing religion, identity and resistance into a political movement that has resonated with many people. Hezbollah has also repressed opponents.
Over the past month, Israel has escalated its war against Hezbollah by bombing cities and towns in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley. Residents from entire villages and districts have been uprooted by Israeli fire, which has razed their homes and stoked fears of permanent displacement.
Ali Saleem, who was forced out of the southern city of Sour, said the war will continue under Trump. He said the president-elect may present a ceasefire proposal that is favourable to Israel but not to Hezbollah or Lebanon.
“Trump will put an offer on the table, and he’ll say, ‘Do you want to end the war or not?’” Selim, 30, told Al Jazeera. “If we say no, then war will continue.”
Ali Aloweeya, 44, added that Trump will likely defend “Zionist interests” in the region.
He fears Trump might even allow Israel to try to build illegal settlements in southern Lebanon, as some far-right Israeli activists and political officials have called for.
“If Trump returns and works again for the interests of the Israelis, then we will resist. We are a people of resistance.”
During Trump’s first presidential term from 2017 to 2021, he adopted measures that harmed Palestinians in the occupied territory and surrounding region.
He cut off US funds to the UN Palestinian aid agency (UNRWA) and broke with decades of policy by moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Palestinians saw the moves as an attempt to upend their right to return to their homeland – as stipulated in UN Resolution 194 – and force them to surrender occupied East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state.
Israel annexed East Jerusalem and occupied Arab lands after defeating Arab armies in the Six-Day War in 1967.
Tasame Ramadan, a Palestinian human rights activist, now fears Trump may allow Israel to annex large swaths of the West Bank. Activists, analysts and rights groups said Israel has de facto done so already.
“As Palestinians, we don’t expect anything positive from Trump. His decisions are unpredictable, but he often ignores Palestinian voices, and his decisions have lasting impact on Palestinians,” said Ramadan, who lives in Nablus, a city in the West Bank.
She noted that Trump in 2019 recognised Israel’s sovereignty over Syria’s occupied Golan Heights, contravening international law.
She’s preparing for similar policies that could harm – even kill – Palestinian aspirations for self-determination.
“Trump’s action ignores our rights and our hopes for freedom and for a sovereign Palestinian state,” she told Al Jazeera.
“But I don’t think Palestinians would be happy if [US Vice President Kamala] Harris had won the election either. She deserved to lose due to her stance on the situation in Palestine and not stopping the genocide.
“In both cases, neither of these two [candidates] were our best options.”Palestinians in Gaza want Donald Trump, who won the US election, to end the war between Israel and Hamas that has devastated their territory.“We were displaced, killed ... there’s nothing left for us, we want peace,” Mamdouh Al-Jadba, who was displaced to Gaza City from Jabalia, said.
“I hope Trump finds a solution, we need someone strong like Trump to end the war and save us, enough, God, this is enough,” said the 60-year-old. “I was displaced three times, my house was destroyed, my children are homeless in the south ... There’s nothing left, Gaza is finished.”
Umm Ahmed Harb, from the Al-Shaaf area east of Gaza City, was also counting on Trump to “stand by our side” and end the territory’s suffering.
“God willing the war will end, not for our sake but for the sake of our young children who are innocent, they were martyred and are dying of hunger,” she said.
“We cannot buy anything with the high prices (of food). We are here in fear, terror and death.”
For Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, where violence has also surged since October last year, Trump’s victory was reason to fear for the future.
“Trump is firm in some decisions, but these decisions could serve Israel’s interests politically more than they serve the Palestinian cause,” said Samir Abu Jundi, a 60-year-old in the city of Ramallah.
Another man who identified himself only by his nickname, Abu Mohammed, said he also saw no reason to believe Trump’s victory would be in favor of the Palestinians, saying “nothing will change except more decline.”
Imad Fakhida, a school principal in the main West Bank city of Ramallah, said “Trump’s return to power ... will lead us to hell and there will be a greater and more difficult escalation.”
He added: “He is known for his complete and greatest support for Israel.”
During his campaign for a return to the White House, Trump said Gaza, which is located on the eastern Mediterranean, could be “better than Monaco.”
He also said he would have responded the same way as Israel did following the Oct. 7 attack, while urging the US ally to “get the job done” because it was “losing a lot of support.”
More broadly he has promised to bring an end to raging international crises, even saying he could “stop wars with a telephone call.”
In Gaza, such statements gave reason for hope. “We expect peace to come and the war to end with Trump because in his election campaign he said that he wants peace and calls for stopping the wars on Gaza and the Middle East,” said Ibrahim Alian, 33, from Gaza City.
Like many of the territory’s residents, Alian has been displaced several times by the fighting. He said he also lost his father to the war.
“God willing the war on the Gaza Strip will end and the situation will change,” he said.
Meanwhile, municipal workers demolished seven homes in occupied East Jerusalem’s Silwan neighborhood on Tuesday, Palestinian residents and the municipality said, after an Israeli court called their construction illegal.
“This morning the Jerusalem municipality, with a security escort from the Israel police, began its enforcement against illegal buildings in the Al-Bustan neighborhood in Silwan,” Jerusalem’s Israeli-controlled city hall said in a statement.
Israel’s parliament passed a law early Thursday that would allow it to deport family members of Palestinian attackers, including the country’s own citizens, to the war-ravaged Gaza Strip or other locations.
The law, which was championed by members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party and his far-right allies, passed with a 61-41 vote but is likely to be challenged in court.
It would apply to Palestinian citizens of Israel and residents of annexed east Jerusalem who knew about their family members’ attacks beforehand or who “express support or identification with the act of terrorism.”
They would be deported, either to the Gaza Strip or another location, for a period of 7 to 20 years. The Israel-Hamas war is still raging in Gaza, where tens of thousands have been killed and most of the population has been internally displaced, often multiple times.
It was unclear if it would apply in the occupied West Bank, where Israel already has a longstanding policy of demolishing the family homes of attackers. Palestinians have carried out scores of stabbing, shooting and car-ramming attacks against Israelis in recent years.
Dr. Eran Shamir-Borer, a senior researcher at the Israel Democracy Institute and a former international law expert for the Israeli military, said that if the law comes before the Supreme Court, it is likely to be struck down based on previous Israeli cases regarding deportation.
“The bottom line is this is completely non-constitutional and a clear conflict to Israel’s core values,” said Shamir-Borer.
Israel captured Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, territories the Palestinians want for their future state. It withdrew settlers and soldiers from Gaza in 2005 but has reoccupied parts of the territory since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack triggered the war.
Israel annexed east Jerusalem in a move not recognized by most of the international community. Palestinians there have permanent residency and are allowed to apply for citizenship, but most choose not to, and those who do face a series of obstacles.
Palestinians living in Israel make up around 20 percent of the country’s population. They have citizenship and the right to vote but face widespread discrimination. Many also have close family ties to those in the territories and most sympathize with the Palestinian cause.