Media coverage
ARA · 2025-04-08
Omar Shaban, director of PalThink, says the Israeli offensive is being waged against the people of Gaza, who have endured mass death, repeated displacement, and the destruction of basic infrastructure, with grave consequences for orphans and young people who have lost everything. He argues that ending the war and restoring hope are essential to breaking the cycle of violence, and calls for Palestinian elections in both Gaza and the West Bank, with a new unified leadership to enable reconstruction.
Omar Shaban, director of PalThink, says the Israeli offensive is being waged against the people of Gaza, who have endured mass death, repeated displacement, and the destruction of basic infrastructure, with grave consequences for orphans and young people who have lost everything. He argues that end…
BarcelonaOmar Shaban, director of PalThink, an independent research center in strategic studies in Gaza, is one of the voices from the Strip with resonance in the international media. From Cairo he is witnessing the Israeli offensive in Gaza, where a large part of his family still lives. On Saturday he took part in the War and Peace conference, organized by CIDOB in Barcelona.
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Are we at the worst moment of the Gaza war?
— We have dozens, if not hundreds, of dead every day. There are no hospitals left, no doctors, no medicines. There is no food, no water, no fuel. People have already lost almost everything and now they have to be displaced again. Imagine having had to move ten or twelve times fleeing the bombings. And all this for what? To get rid of Hamas? Hamas is only the excuse. It is obvious that the war is against the people of Gaza. And there is no end in sight. We have more than 20,000 children who have been orphaned. What do you expect them to become in the future?
— They will be radicals, of course. They killed their parents, they destroyed their homes. They have nothing left. For 18 months they have been surviving in impossible conditions. In Gaza we had a modern society and now people have to eat grass. How do you expect them to behave?
How can people survive after a year and a half of bombardment and siege?
— In Gaza, which is only 360 square kilometers, they have dropped 100,000 tons of explosives, the equivalent of four nuclear bombs like the one dropped on Hiroshima. The United States has sent Israel the most destructive bombs. A single rocket destroyed my family’s house and six more houses around it. There is no sewage system, no schools, no farmland, no water treatment plants. Only people remain. We Palestinians are rooted in our land; we have many problems, but we love our country. I am Palestinian and it has never crossed my mind to ask for another passport. I have traveled all over the world, but I have always wanted to return to Palestine. And now I want to return to Gaza. This story did not begin on October 7, 2023. It began a hundred years ago. We have resisted for a century, we have suffered 17 wars or attacks since 2006. Gaza has been where it is since time immemorial, at the crossroads connecting Europe, Asia, and Africa. Perhaps, all things considered, that has not made us fortunate, but it is what we are. And it must not be forgotten that two thirds of the population of the Strip are refugees. Our parents or grandparents were expelled from their homes in 1948 when the state of Israel was created, and from Gaza you can still see the lands from which they were driven out.
That is where the Palestine Liberation Organization began, the First Intifada of 1987, the Second Intifada of 2001...
— Yes, Gaza has always been politically very active. Also because of living conditions and the high population density. I do not know why, but we are hot-blooded. Every time a war ends, before long we are already cleaning everything up. And while the bombs are falling, we never stop going to the beach. Israel says we are terrorists, but in Gaza we love life. We want to live.
For some time the United States has been pressuring Egypt and Jordan to move the people of Gaza there. Lately, Trump and Netanyahu have been talking about other countries, from Sudan to Somaliland. Do you think these ethnic cleansing plans could end up working?
— In no way. Of course many people in Gaza now want to leave because they want to be in a safe place and they see no end to the war. But how many can that be? 20,000? 200,000? What reason do people have to go to Somalia, Sudan, or Indonesia, if we are in our own home, on the Mediterranean. I myself want to return the day the border opens. Palestinians are not willing to leave forever. We want to study in Europe or the United States, but so that we can return and develop our land.
How do you interpret the protests against Hamas in recent weeks in northern Gaza?
— It is natural. After 15 months of war and two months of ceasefire, people want to stop dying. And they are asking Hamas to release the hostages, but they also know that the problem is the Israeli occupation. The latest protests had a great deal of resonance in the Western press, but in reality there had been earlier ones just as important. People want Hamas to be more rational and smarter in dealing with the conflict, and not to give Netanyahu any excuse to continue the war. People know the situation perfectly well: they know that Netanyahu does not want to end the war because of his judicial problems and in order to preserve the governing coalition. There is a roadmap for peace, but Netanyahu does not want it, so we Palestinians must be intelligent. A new ceasefire is now being negotiated and Netanyahu always misleads us with the details or sends someone without any authority. But Egypt is putting a lot of pressure on Hamas and on Israel.
Former United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken said a few weeks ago that Hamas had recruited more new fighters than had been killed in a year and a half of war.
— How is a young person of 15 or 20 who has lost everything expected to act? That is what matters to me, the future. The first thing that must be done is to stop the war and the second is to give hope. The key word is hope. That people can think that it will not be immediate, but that in two or three years things will be better. Just to restore water and electricity infrastructure we will need two or three years. I am not talking about reconstruction, which will be an enormous, complex, and very expensive process. The only way to break the cycle is to bring hope: for people to believe that they have a future. For them to think, “they killed my brother, but I cannot stay trapped in the past.”
Who should govern Gaza?
— Elections must be called. Not only in Gaza, but also in the West Bank. The majority of Palestinian leaders in the West Bank are over 70 years old... in a society where young people are the immense majority! President Mahmoud Abbas is 85. What is due to him is retirement. Elections also have a psychosocial effect: people have the opportunity to decide about their future, and that alleviates anger. They have a soothing effect.
But if there are elections, Hamas will win them.
— No, absolutely not. The Palestinians will bet on a new political leadership. Someone who can act, not only talk. Rebuilding Gaza will cost, according to Egypt’s plan, at least 50 billion dollars. The Gulf countries and Europe are willing to contribute, but they set as a condition that Hamas leave power. And that can happen if we Palestinians choose a unified leadership. There is hope.
— Unfortunately, the EU is playing a very weak role because of its internal division. But we are neighbors, and we hope that as neighbors they will do their job.
Text © ARA — archived here with attribution to the source. — Machine translation for archival reference. — Original source