For more than a year, millions of Palestinians living in Gaza have been left homeless, facing severe food and medical shortages and threatened by Israeli airstrikes. On Wednesday, local health officials said an estimated 46,000 Gazans have been killed in a landscape that has been largely reduced to rubble.
So, President-elect Donald J. Trump he promised it On October 7, 2023, if the hostages taken from Israel during the Hamas-led attacks are not released in the next two weeks, “Hell will break loose in the Middle East,” Gazans asked: if this is not hell, then what is?
“I'm not sure he understands the situation here – it's already hell,” said Alaa Issam, 33, from Deir al-Balah in central Gaza.
Negotiations between Israel and Hamas to end the war have stalled, leaving civilians in Gaza desperate for the future.
“They have been killing us for 15 months,” said teacher Isam. “We spent two cold winters in tents, two hot summers we destroyed our food. We are starving and people are dying of hunger, and there is continuous brutal bombing everywhere.”
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Mr Trump said he “doesn't want to hurt the negotiations” for a hostage exchange and a ceasefire deal that remains under discussion. Mr. Trump's the highest visiting Middle Eastern envoy, Steven Witkoff is expected to attend these talks in Doha, the capital of Qatar, later this week.
But Mr Trump has been outspoken about threatening consequences if Hamas refuses to release about 100 remaining hostages – at least a third of whom are believed to be dead – taken from Israeli territory and held since the militant group led the attack on Israel.
“It's not going to be good for Hamas, and frankly, it's not going to be good for anybody,” he said. “If it's going to be two weeks now, all hell will break loose in the Middle East before we start a deal,” Mr. Trump added.
His comments were echoed in Gaza on Wednesday, with some civilians questioning why the Palestinians and not Israel would be punished if a deal on hostages was not reached during Mr Trump's inauguration.
Akram al-Satri, 47, a freelance translator from Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, said he found it strange that Mr. Trump “doesn't realize that Gaza is devoid of all life forms and thinks he can add to it. Hell, though Israel spares no effort to make the lives of Gazans worse than hell.
“All of us who saw bombs dropped on us every day” lived “a reality more devastating and sad than hell,” he added.
Although most Gazans blame Israel for the death and destruction around them, many also say that Hamas is responsible to start a war.
Several Gazans interviewed on Wednesday said they feared a continuation of the pro-Israel policies Mr. Trump pursued during his first term in office from 2017 to 2021.
In those years, the American embassy in Israel was moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which the Palestinians also claim as the capital, and the United States recognized Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in 1967.