Rethinking Humanitarianism | What Palestinians want for Gaza’s future

Amir Abu Qasim 

My dream for Gaza's future isn't about towering glass skyscrapers or fancy buildings. My dream is simply to see our real schools rebuilt with spacious classrooms, libraries where we can read, and wide green soccer fields. I want a future where I can sleep at night without hearing the sounds of bombing and terror, without our home being destroyed, and without having to pack our clothes into bags and flee from place to place, moving from one tent to another.

Tammam Aloudat 

Welcome to Rethinking Humanitarianism, a show that explores the future of aid in a world of rising crises. I'm your host Tammam Aloudat, CEO of The New Humanitarian.

As Israel's genocide continues to take Palestinian lives, displace and raze entire neighbourhoods, and exacerbate an ongoing multitude of humanitarian crises, powerful forces are already trying to determine the future of the Gaza Strip. Taking up the lion's share of global attention is U.S. President Donald Trump's Board of Peace: the entity tasked with overseeing Gaza's reconstruction. But what about the more than 2 million Palestinians who call the Gaza Strip home?

Shahed ElAssy 

When international discussions talk about Gaza's future, promising things like special economic zones, high-tech hubs, or modern towers, it feels completely disconnected from our reality. As a Gazan, I don't measure a human future through commercial projects built over our trauma. 

Tammam Aloudat As the writer Hassan Herzallah recently wrote for The New Humanitarian: “Gaza's future cannot be drawn for Palestinians without them.” So in this episode, we hear from Palestinians – what do they want for the future of Gaza, and how do they want the humanitarian system to support that vision?

Bushra Khalidi

If Israeli forces are going to destroy a water system, we need to help people get water, but we also need to name who destroyed it and push for that destruction to stop. [...] And humanitarian principles are there to strengthen our ability to do that. 

We hear from a family: poet and journalist Nour ElAssy who was evacuated to Paris during the genocide, her sister Shahed ElAssy, a law student in Gaza, and Amir Abu Qasim, their 13 year-old cousin also in Gaza. We also hear from Oxfam’s Global Humanitarian Policy Lead, Bushra Khalidi, from her home in Ramallah, journalist Rasha Abou Jalal from Gaza, and Shahd Hammouri, a Palestinian academic living in the United Kingdom. But first, why is there talk of reconstruction during an ongoing genocide? What plans are on the table, and where do Palestinians' wishes for their own future figure in these plans? Joining me is Eric Reidy, The New Humanitarian’s Migration & Special Coverage Editor, and the editor who has been responsible for our Gaza coverage for the past three years. Eric, welcome.

Eric Reidy 

Thank you, Tammam.

Tammam Aloudat 

Eric, before we can talk about reconstruction or the future of Gaza, there is still a genocide going on. Can you please remind us of what the situation is on the ground for Palestinians in Gaza Strip?

Eric Reidy 

Yeah, one year into this so-called ceasefire, the situation on the ground in Gaza is basically frozen in place where it was around the same time last year. The number of Israeli attacks has decreased compared to what it was from the end of 2023 until the so-called ceasefire. But Israel still continues to carry out almost-daily attacks. It directly occupies 70% of the Gaza Strip, more or less, More than 2 million Palestinians are crammed into the remaining 30%. Most of them are living in tents. A lot of them are living in war-damaged buildings. Tragically, we saw the consequences of that recently, with one of those buildings collapsing, killing a couple dozen people. The amount of food aid entering Gaza has increased, but there's still incredible limitations on what is coming in. If you sort of drill down into the information about what is entering, a lot of what's coming in is high caloric food – carbonated sugary beverages, chocolate chips. Those kind of things are very available in Gaza, but nutritious food, fresh vegetables, animal proteins, et cetera, are much less available. So it's sort of the situation where, you know, people are living in unsuitable shelters, we're heading into winter, and reconstruction has not begun at all in any sense of the word because of the continued blockade and limitations imposed by Israel.

Tammam Aloudat 

Despite the continuation of the aid restrictions, the continuity of the attacks– well, if we're following Gaza, we will hear about the attacks, but it has hardly stayed a part of the daily news that are consumed in mainstream media. You have to hear about it otherwise, now. We seem to be having a conversation about reconstruction, as if the genocide and the restrictions on aid and the displacement have ended, and that there is a ground for reconstruction. Can you tell us about that conversation about reconstruction, and who are the major players there?

Eric Reidy 

So the way that I see it, there are basically two main visions for what the future of the Gaza Strip will look like. One is an Israeli-defined vision, and the other is sort of the vision that is being put forward by the US-led Board of Peace. In terms of the Israeli-defined vision, it's basically more of what we have been seeing so far: sort of a perpetuation of the status quo indefinitely, combined with explicit calls for the complete ethnic cleansing of Gaza by members of the current Israeli government. And there's, based on who the candidates are for the upcoming elections in Israel, there's also really no reason to believe that either a perpetuation of the status quo, of no reconstruction, continued direct occupation of Gaza, and so on would change necessarily. Or that, you know, whether it's a short-term plan that members of the current government have announced for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, or sort of a longer-term plan to slowly push people out of the Gaza Strip, that either of those things are off the table, even if there is a change in government in Israel. So that's sort of one side of things, is that what we have been seeing for the past year continues in the way that it has been going for the last year. Israel continues to impose its restrictions that are preventing any kind of reconstruction, continues to limit aid, food, necessary goods from entering Gaza, and people live in this sort of limbo between the full-scale military campaign that we saw before and anything that would resemble like peace and reconstruction and ability to move forward. On the other side of things, you have the US-led Board of Peace. We've seen the visions put forward of these high-tech, high-rise, sort of glittering, glitzy, AI-powered cities. Some version of Donald Trump's Gaza Riviera idea that he put forward a couple of years ago. And that's sort of the grand vision that we've been presented, and we've seen sort of incremental plans be announced since then about what immediate steps would look like. But if you drill down into those immediate plans, there's really no indication of how any of them will begin to be implemented on the ground. The most recent plan that was announced was for the first six months of the redevelopment phase, which is– the word choice is interesting. The Board of Peace doesn't talk about reconstruction; it talks about redevelopment, sort of putting it in a business framework rather than a humanitarian post-conflict framework. And in terms of material change for people on the ground in Gaza, the big project that was announced along with that was the development of an Emirati-constructed humanitarian city on the ruins of Rafah in the south of Gaza, and this is an idea that has been put forward multiple times over the past couple of years, and one that former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert referred to as a plan for creating a concentration camp in the south of the Gaza Strip in the past. And so, essentially, the concrete plan that exists to improve housing, improve medical access, improve services for Palestinians actually living in Gaza is this plan for a quote-unquote humanitarian city in the south of the Strip.

Tammam Aloudat 

There are a couple of things that follow from this. One of them is that yes, obviously there was the Jared Kushner sponsored slideshow that showed the high rises and the, you know, futuristic riviera in Gaza, which arguably even at the time was criticised as this doesn't look like something they are building for Gazans. But two years on, we're looking at news that even that has been reduced into reconstructing Rafah, whether in that Emirati-sponsored humanitarian city, quote-unquote. Are they still talking about reconstructing or redeveloping the whole of Gaza, or are we into this, you know, “we will build something small and get it over with and get out.”

Eric Reidy 

I think we're sort of in between those two things. There has been a walk back from the grand redevelopment plan that Kushner presented at the end of last year or the beginning of this year, and an announcement of this very much scaled-down plan to build a quote-unquote humanitarian city. I think it's important here also to just note that there is no reconstruction planned for Rafah. Rafah has been completely razed to the ground, and the plan is to build something on top of those ruins that would be, essentially, temporary housing in a biometrically controlled access zone where people who were pre-vetted would be allowed to go and live. So that is the plan: not a vision for reconstruction, but sort of this intermediary step of moving people from one place to another sort of temporary location with no idea of where it's really pointing in the future.

Tammam Aloudat 

The Board of Peace supposedly has a body in it that is a national body. Are they making any difference?

Eric Reidy

I think that that is a really difficult thing to be able to assess in any kind of, like, objective or fair way. There's a National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, which is supposed to be a technocratic committee made up of Palestinians from Gaza that are involved in developing these plans, and that's kind of a stand-in for any kind of democratic representative process. In the most generous or charitable interpretation, you can say, okay, these are Palestinians from Gaza who have the best interest of Palestinians in Gaza in mind, and so they have a voice in this process, and they're influencing the development of the Board of Peace's plans in a way that will hopefully benefit the people of Gaza. You know, the less charitable, maybe more realistic way of looking at it is: what is the entity that this national committee is lodged underneath, and who is leading that committee? We're talking about Steve Whitkoff. We're talking about Marco Rubio. We're talking about Jared Kushner. All of these are close confidants of Donald Trump, if not relatives of Donald Trump, who have a long track record of being, you know, incredibly pro-Israel, anti-Palestinian, and you know, there's really no reason to assume that they are working in the best interest of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Tammam Aloudat 

And there has been a clear mention in the article published in The New Humanitarian by Hassan Herzallah about even those members of the national committee are still not even allowed to go into Gaza. So even that solution that is not far from optimal is not allowed to be implemented. But to expand it, where do Palestinians' vision for their own future figure in this whole discourse about reconstruction?

Eric Reidy 

I think that's one of the really striking things about the situation that we find ourselves in, where we're sort of stuck between the Israeli-defined future that I outlined earlier and the Board of Peace-defined future that is either sort of ambiguous or completely unclear about how it's going to move forward because Israel continues to block it. And if you're an international diplomat, if you're someone working for an aid organisation, if you're a UN agency, basically the only show in town in terms of advocating for movement towards some sort of reconstruction, some sort of redevelopment, the only thing that exists for you to advocate for is for the Board of Peace to be able to begin to operate and begin to implement its reconstruction or redevelopment plans. The really striking thing is, because the Board of Peace has been sanctioned and given authority to oversee the next phase of what happens in Gaza by the UN through a UN resolution, it is the entity that has the authority to oversee the next stage of this process. So, anybody who's advocating for progress sort of has to do it within the framework of the Board of Peace mandate and concept. Whereas Palestinians on the ground in Gaza, or in the diaspora, or in other parts of Palestine, there's really no room for their voice in this process. Nobody is asking the question: what do Palestinians in Gaza want for their own futures? What would reconstruction defined by their needs, their priorities, their desires, their hopes, their aspirations actually look like.

Tammam Aloudat 

There are two layers of the problem. One is that we're talking about reconstruction while the genocide hasn't ended yet, and there are explicit plans to continue the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and of the West Bank, which one could talk about completely in addition to this. And then, when there is any discussion about that, it is restrained within a potentially problematic discourse of the Board of Peace. But are there other reconstruction plans in discussion that center Palestinian voices, that are initiated, sustained, pushed forward by Palestinians themselves?

Eric Reidy 

There are other plans that have been put forward. There's a Gaza Phoenix Initiative that was published in 2024, already, I believe that was an initiative. That was led by Palestinian civil society and also incorporated the Union of Municipalities in Gaza at a local level to really create a holistic plan for stabilisation and eventual reconstruction led by the needs of communities and their self-defined priorities. Also, Oxfam recently came out with a report that focused on similar things about a rights-based approach to reconstruction that was led by Palestinians in the enclaves themselves. The UN has also done some work on this. Various UN bodies have also done some work on this. So there are elements of that out in the public sphere in places, but there's no really sustained conversation about what this Palestinian-led rights-based approach to stabilisation and reconstruction would look like.

Tammam Aloudat 

This episode, Eric, we wanted to focus on Palestinian voices, and then what is the humanitarian system to do about this? The humanitarian sector has a long-standing position: is that reconstruction, rehabilitation is not their business. However, how the humanitarian sector acts now will affect the possibilities of reconstruction and revival of the possibility of life in Gaza altogether, let alone like reconstruction of buildings, or spaces, or so on. Even the survival of people, their ability to continue to exist, their ability to survive, and hence for any future to exist. In your estimation, what role should the humanitarian sector play in Gaza post-genocide, if that ever happens, in reconstruction, in the next phase, when and if it it happens?

Eric Reidy 

I think the humanitarian sector has an important role to play in the stabilisation phase because the infrastructure necessary to sustain life in Gaza has been systematically eliminated over the course of the past three years by the Israeli military. There is a tremendous need for outside support to be able to allow people to continue to exist in Gaza. So I think that, I mean, that is the the basic fundamental role that the humanitarian sector should play, needs to play. I also think there's a really important advocacy role and sort of truth-telling role, also. International journalists continue to be banned from entering the Gaza Strip. Palestinian journalists have been covering this on the ground from the beginning at tremendous risk to themselves. Hundreds have been killed. They've done an incredibly, an incredible job given the circumstances. And other than the Palestinian journalists who have been doing this work, the only other eyes and ears on the ground are aid workers, are international aid workers. They're the only people from the international community who have been able to enter the Gaza Strip over the course of the past three years. So I think there's a really important role in terms of being truthful about what is happening on the ground, being truthful about the direction that things are headed in, and not falling into this false dichotomy between the Israeli-defined future and the Board of Peace-defined future being the only two options that we can talk about, because that's where the conversation, in my mind, is stuck currently. If you think about Hassan Herzallah's article, I think one of the, one of the striking things in that article is people have been forced into a position of such desperation that there is seemingly a willingness to accept anything that will marginally improve the conditions of life. If it's the Board of Peace that can bring about a marginal improvement of conditions of life, they're willing to accept it. If it is the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, they're willing to accept it. If it is the International Stabilisation Force that is supposed to be deployed as part of the 20-point peace plan that will allow for the Israeli military to actually withdraw from Gaza, and for an actual end to the attacks and and violence, then people are willing to accept it. At least in the short term. How that will play out in the longer term is another question. But I think it's the the voices of people who are on the ground in Gaza who are being forced to have no choice but to live in these conditions that the humanitarian community needs to be listening to in order to guide how they navigate the situation going forward,

Tammam Aloudat 

and that is exactly what we are going to try to do in this episode: is to bring some of those voices. Obviously, that is not a representative sample or covers every opinion, but in trying to bring Palestinian voices from the ground in Gaza, from the humanitarian sector, and from the diaspora, what we are trying to do is poke at the system and say: there are voices you're not listening to. It is an imperative for everybody to center and put those voices forward and actually listen to them, rather than consult and ignore. Eric, thank you very much for this overview of the situation, and for all the coverage you have led on Gaza in The New Humanitarian, and for maintaining the voices and presence of many Palestinian journalists on our pages, and hopefully has been a place where people feel safe and capable of reflecting what they want from one of the worst humanitarian crisis we are witnessing. Thank you, Eric.

Eric Reidy 

Thank you, Tamam.

[music break]

Bushra Khalidi 

My name is Bushra Khalidi. I'm a Palestinian woman, originally from Jerusalem and the Galilee. And I now live in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. And I'm recording this from here, from my home. I'm also the global humanitarian policy lead at Oxfam International. My husband is from Gaza. Our family has experienced, of course, repeated forced displacement and separation during Israel's genocide. So, I think when I talk about Gaza's future, I'm also really talking about my family and the Palestine I want my son to grow up in. I think it's important to underscore that Gaza's people's homes, you know. Palestine is people's neighbourhoods. Gaza has relationships; it's people's memories.

Amir Abu Qasim 

People watching from outside on TV might think Gaza didn't have a good life before the war, but we had so many things we loved. We had our warm homes, our neighborhoods, the parks, and the seaside amusement parks where my family used to take us during Eid al-Adah. We would play there all day long.

Rasha Abou Jalal 

For me, Gaza is not only the place where I live or where I work; it is the place where I grew up and became who I am. It has my memories and relationships, my family, and my whole life. I believe that talking about the reconstruction of Gaza is very important, but at the same time, it is a painful and complex conversation for me. Reconstruction is not only rebuilding the buildings that got destroyed. We are talking about the rebuilding of whole lives: the houses, schools, hospitals, universities, and roads, about water pipes and electricity grids. We talk also of rebuilding people's lives and memories, about them feeling safe and being able to plan their futures.

Shahed ElAssy 

When international discussions talk about Gaza's future, promising things like special economic zones, high-tech hubs, or modern towers, it feels completely disconnected from our reality. As a Gazan, I don't measure a human future through commercial projects built over our trauma. What we need isn't a smart city designed by external actors. We need a society rooted in justice, safety, and basic human dignity. Before anyone offers us economic plans, we need the fundamental right to live freely without fear of displacement or blockade.

Shahd Hammouri 

As it stands now, when we speak about our imaginary of reconstruction, sadly, we're far too wedded into the capitalist imaginary of how our future would look like. And perhaps this is the effect of decades of fragmentation and dispossession on our imaginaries. I don't imagine Gaza with high skyscrapers, but I imagine a Gaza that is self-sufficient and that is capable of maintaining its own economic space.

Bushra Khalidi 

We should all agree that Palestinians should have the basic right to determine their own future. But we're still in a place where we're having to argue for a meaningful say in decisions about our own land. I think what I'm most concerned and afraid of, is that the plans that we've been hearing from the international community and how it's discussed, it almost treats Gaza as if it's this empty space that anybody can come and design and redesign. And I think that that terrifies me.

Nour ElAssy 

My name is Nour ElAssy. I recently turned 24 years old. I have lived during the genocide and was displaced. And suffered all of the horrors and the loss of the genocide, and then was evacuated in July 2025 to Paris, France, to continue my master's studies at L'École des hautes études en sciences sociales. And I'm also a journalist, and I'm also a poet. And recently, I published my first poetry collection called Ceci est ma maison, like, ‘this is my house’, ‘this is my home’. It is absolutely, I would say, nonsense for me to think about the future while the genocide is still in the present tense. People are just living an hour by hour. I wouldn't say day-by-day because people there don't have the luxury to even think about the future because they don't know whether there will be a future or not. Whether there will be a next day, a next week.

Bushra Khalidi 

But I also cannot accept that governments are talking enthusiastically about reconstruction right now, right? And then they're failing at the same time to stop Israel's destruction – deliberate and systematic destruction. Palestinians cannot be expected to wait for a political agreement before they can have clean water or medical care. And I think any credible vision has to address Israel's illegal occupation.

Rasha Abou Jalal 

I think we can talk about the future of Gaza, but we must not allow the talk about the future to be used to ignore what is happening to people in the present. It is difficult to ask someone who is living in the midst of war and destruction to talk about the future as if it has all ended. But there is an essential condition where this future should be based on justice and freedom, on safety and rights. I don't want to reach a stage where the world says, ‘The war is over’, and, ‘Let's rebuild Gaza’, without asking, ‘Why was Gaza destroyed, and why did Palestinians live all those years in conditions that made the war possible and repeated?’ If we want a real future, we have to deal with the roots of the problem and not only its symptoms. As for talking for the future, it is not escaping the present. It can be a way to say that despite all that has happened, we still believe we have a right to a future.

Bushra Khalidi 

I think Palestinians absolutely have the right to imagine and plan our future, even though Israel continues to commit genocide against us. I think we need that possibility of a future, you know. We need to hold on to that. Like, that's what also, in a way, keeps us going.

Nour ElAssy 

I would say let Palestinians decide for themselves. Let them say what they want. Let them contribute. No, not contribute. Let them decide completely and fully their own destiny.

Amir Abu Qasim 

Amir Abu Qasim from Gaza, Palestine. I am 13 years old. If I could design Gaza's future, I would want to return it how it was before and be even better. My dream for Gaza's future isn't about towering glass skyscrapers or fancy buildings. My dream is simply to see our real schools rebuilt with spacious classrooms, libraries where we can read, and wide green soccer fields. I want a future where I can sleep at night without hearing the sounds of bombing and terror, without our home being destroyed, and without having to pack our clothes into bags and flee from place to place, moving from one tent to another. I just want them to remember the little things that matter to us children. First, I want them to fix the streets and neighbourhoods from scratch. Clear away the heavy rubble, and clean the roads so we can ride our bicycles, walk, and run freely without stepping on broken glass or twisted metal. Then I would want them to rebuild our homes so every family can return to their own house, with its private door, and stay together in comfort. Right now, the streets in the whole city are grey and dusty. It's a heartbreaking sight. That's why I hope when they can rebuild new apartments, buildings, and houses, they paint them in lovely light colors like blue, yellow, and green, and plant trees and flowers in the opening spaces along the streets. We also need good street lighting so that we can walk outside at night, [and it] doesn't feel so scary. My fathers and uncles, neighbors, and young men in the neighbourhood really want to help build the area and the houses themselves. They are the ones who have lived here, who know every inch and every home and long to see it beautiful again.

Shahd Hammouri 

How would I want this reconstruction to take place? Well, I would want the reconstruction to take place in a manner that is equitable and in a manner that is not defined by the needs of global capital. If this reconstruction is funded by Gulf money or by the money of millionaires and billionaires around the world, then that is not independence. That is dependence, and that is a new form of colonisation that Gaza will have to live through. So I know what we don't want. We don't want foreign money to come to us in forms of debt. We want our reparations, which is why in the near future we cannot imagine reconstruction in terms of big infrastructural movements, but rather we need to imagine infrastructure in a manner that is capable of sustaining the struggle, which is not ending anytime soon.

Shahed ElAssy 

My biggest problem with reconstruction right now is that Palestinians – the ones who survived, who own the land, and have the right to rebuild – are kept out of the decisions. And instead of trusting local engineers, lawyers, and youth in Gaza, contracts are given to foreign companies and actors, including some that actually profited from our destruction. Real reconstruction cannot be led by the people who caused or gained from our surviving. It has to be based on our right to self-determination.

Rasha Abou Jalal 

I also want there to be a space for justice and accountability. We cannot ask people to forget all that happened and start from scratch as if nothing happened. I imagine Gaza with beautiful streets and parks, schools and equipped hospitals, good universities, and a port and an airport, an economy that works, and opportunities for youth. However, more important than all that, I imagine a Gaza where people don't live fearing the next war. I want Palestinian children to feel, for the first time, that the future is something that can be planned and not something to fear.

My name is Rasha Abou Jalal. I'm a journalist from Gaza City. I'm 38 years old and have worked in the field of journalism and media for the past 15 years. But during the past three years, what it means to be a journalist has greatly changed me. I no longer transmit the stories of others. I now live through the stories I tell. For my future, I want something very simple, but that is a big dream for me. I want to live a normal and safe life with my family. I am a journalist that loves her work. I want to continue to be a journalist and to continue to write about Gaza. However, I don't want the war to be the only subject that I write about. I want to write sometimes about a Palestinian child that succeeded in their studies, about the opening of a new university, about an artist opening an exhibition, about a woman that started a business, or about a family that went to the beach on the weekend.

Bushra Khalidi 

I've just visited my brother-in-law in Jordan because he can't come to the West Bank to see us, even though he was displaced and exiled out of Gaza during the genocide. He's Palestinian; he should be able to visit his brother in his own country, in the West Bank, and it makes no sense that we have to travel to another country to spend time together as a family. I don't think that is the reality for any other people in the world, you know. We, we should be able to visit our family in Gaza. They should be able to come and visit us. If someone needs healthcare in the West Bank or Jerusalem, they should be able to get there. We should be able to go to the beach in Yaffa together. We should be able to be able to have lunch at my in-laws’ on the weekend and have them over the following weekend. Just ordinary family life. And that's what freedom of movement actually means. It's being able to see the people you love and get the care you need, and choose where you study or you work. And it's my son growing up knowing that he has those rights too.

Shahed ElAssy 

Hello, everyone. My name is Shahed ElAssy; a 20 years old law student from Gaza. What I want most for my future is purpose and impact. My goal is to specialise in international law abroad and gain the legal tools and global expertise we need. What matters to me on a deeply personal level is using that knowledge right here at home to protect human dignity, defend our basic rights and be an active part of rebuilding a society where our people can finally feel safe, secure, and heard.

Amir Abu Qasim 

As for my personal future, my biggest, most important dream is to become a famous professional soccer player. I love soccer more than anything else in the whole world. Even during the war and the hard times we went through, when everything around us is dark and terrifying, my friends and I would gather in the tent to play with a plastic ball or one stuffed with sand. That was the one time that we felt happy, forgetting all the fear, shelling, and exhaustion surrounding us. I want to train every day from morning till night, join a major academy, wear an official team jersey with my name and favorite number on the back, and play in a stadium, a huge world-class stadium packed with fans cheering and chanting my name. I want to score beautiful goals, represent our country, Palestine, and make my family and everyone else proud of me. I want to show the whole world that children of Gaza possess real talent, speed, energy, and massive dreams, that we are not just images and statistics you can see on the news.

Nour ElAssy 

I would imagine an ordinary life with the families reunited, with the hospitals reconstructed, with the hot meal in a home. I would imagine the lovely ordinary Gaza, nothing special, Just the feeling of the home, the warmth of the home. And I don't want to see a single tent in Gaza, because the Palestinians deserve better than that. Any human being deserves better than that.

Rasha Abou Jalal 

I don't want to leave Gaza to find a future. I want to have a future in Ghaza. That is what I want. I might want to travel one day to see the world and visit places I have not been to, but I want to come back to my home. I want travel to be a choice and not an escape or seeking refuge. Maybe, after all we have gone through, defining the future for me has become very different. Future isn't any more about fortune, fame, professional success. It is for me to wake up in the morning without fear, to see my children grow, to work, then come back to my home, to see Gaza getting back to health, to finally feel that we own our lives, and that we can decide what we want and what we do.

Shahd Hammouri 

As for my own future, my own future is sadly suspended upon very far-fetched dreams, and that suspension doesn't allow concrete imaginations of the future, because I'm either bound to live in exile or bound to live under political prosecution, unless there is a structural change – not only in Palestine but in the region, as we cannot imagine a free Palestine without a change in the order of the region, so to speak. I imagine for my future and that of my children the ability to return, not to what we call the West Bank and Gaza, but to my ancestral home, which is in what we now call Israel. To be able to return to that house made of rocks that my grandmother spoke of. To be able to see it and to be able to claim a part of that heritage, rather than spending my own life and that of my children in exile, without having the ability to set down our roots, and to set down our space of community.

My name is Shahd Hammouri, and I am an academic living in the United Kingdom. I'm from Palestinian descent, from my mother's side, and my own family has different branches in Palestine. Well, the humanitarian sector has a very important role to play, and it's a rebellious role at this stage. Sadly, the humanitarian sector has played as a part of co-opted forms of resistance, whereby the Palestinian is simply a victim. Our forms of resistance, our forms of saying “No” were simply discarded, [and] thought of as too unsophisticated and too far away from the claim to moral superiority upheld by a good part of the humanitarian institutions that are based in Europe and that engage with inherently Eurocentric frameworks in their engagement with war.

Nour ElAssy 

I think that now Palestinians and people in Gaza need, need, in desperate need of a humanitarian like never before. They need food, medication, and medical support, infrastructural support. These things are really, really crucial and essential. But I know that Israel has been denying this humanitarian aid.

Amir Abu Qasim 

So often, I wish they would bring us the things that make us feel normal, just like the kids everywhere else in the world, instead of just handing out flour, cooking oil, and food aid. Standing in long lines under [the] scorching sun for a carton of food or a bottle of water is agonising and drains all our energy. That is not the way we should be growing up. It would be amazing if they brought us art supplies, coloured pencils, and large sketchbooks [so] we can draw and express our dreams, rather than just sitting around all day doing nothing.

Rasha Abou Jalal 

We must get over the idea that Palestinians only need aid. Palestinians are not just beneficiaries. We can be doctors, an engineer, a teacher, a business owner, a researcher, a journalist, an employee, or a leader in their societies. That is why I believe that the humanitarian sector should invest in people themselves and not only the distribution of aid. I believe the humanitarian sector should also defend people's dignity and not only survival. When people live years depending on humanitarian assistance, it affects their ability to build independent lives.

Shahed ElAssy 

Honestly, we don't want the humanitarian sector to keep reducing our plight to food parcels and tents. Beyond the severe lack of basic resources, our core crisis is fundamentally an issue of freedom, justice, and systematic violation of our human rights. The real role of the humanitarian sector shouldn't be just manage our surviving with temporary aid. They need to shift toward a genuine rights-based approach, acting as a real alliance who push against the root causes of our hardship, advocate for structural protection, and help us in the siege so we can rebuild our own lives with dignity, rather than staying permanently dependent on relief.

Bushra Khalidi 

In my opinion, you know, I think the humanitarian sector has a has a responsibility to help Palestinians survive Israel's genocide and occupation, and they have to support them in shaping their own future. And we need to explain what defending our principles as humanitarians actually means in practice.

Shahd Hammouri 

On a more practical level, humanitarian institutions need to first and foremost prioritise coordination with local actors and not any local actors, but rather working class rather than elite actors. Going forward, humanitarian organisations need to center first and foremost the demands of Palestinian self-determination, not only understood as democracy or statehood, which are irrelevant considerations for people under colonisation.

Rasha Abou Jalal 

Palestinians know the needs of their communities better than any external entities. The international community can make available funding, expertise, technology, and resources. However, Palestinians should be themselves the ones with the vision and decision. For me, I prefer a sort of humanitarian work that helps people to stand on their own feet again. I believe the best thing that the humanitarian sector can do is to help Palestinians reach this point, and then retreat when people are able to build their own lives.

Bushra Khalidi 

If Israeli forces are going to destroy a water system, we need to help people get water, but we also need to name who destroyed it and push for that destruction to stop. And I think that's part of protecting people, and humanitarian principles are there to strengthen our ability to do that. And I think humanitarian principles should never become a reason to avoid an uncomfortable conversation with a government that funds us.

Shahd Hammouri 48:57

It is to understand that this is an anti-colonial struggle, and also to challenge the internal space that seeks to only approach things within the framework that is more apologetic to power than it is in defiance of it.

Tammam Aloudat 49:49

That was Nour ElAssy, Shahed ElAssy, Amir Abu Qasim, Bushra Khalidi, Rasha Abou Jalal, and Shahd Hammouri. Nour and Rasha have been contributing to The New Humanitarian’s coverage of Gaza, and in the coming days, we will be publishing more stories reflecting on three years of genocide, and one year since the announcement of a ceasefire. You can find it all on our website – thenewhumanitarian.org. Thank you for listening to Rethinking Humanitarianism. This episode was hosted by Tammam Aloudat, produced by Melissa Fundira, and mixed by Tevin Sudi. Editorial oversight by Irwin Loy, and support from Eric Reidy. Translation by Tammam Aloudat, and voiceovers by Ali El-Menshawy and Melissa Fundira. If you have any questions or comments you can email us at [email protected]. Please rate and subscribe to our show wherever you get your podcasts. Also consider becoming a member of The New Humanitarian to help us continue reporting from the hearts of crises. Go to www.thenewhumanitarian.org to find out more.