Most Palestinians will leave Gaza if given chance, finds survey

Most of the Palestinians would leave the Gaza Strip if given a chance, according to a Gallup survey conducted this month.

The survey findings have been published at a time when US President Donald Trump's plan to annex Gaza and expel Palestinians living there has outraged the world. But the findings suggest that the idea of leaving Gaza has some traction among the enclave’s residents.

The survey found that 38 per cent of Palestinians would leave Gaza for the time being but return later if given a chance, 14 per cent would leave permanently, and 38 would not leave at all, according to The Daily Telegraph.

Gaza is one half of the envisioned Palestinian state along with the Israel-occupied West Bank. The strip’s annexation under Trump’s plan would kill the two state solution that envisions to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by creating a State of Palestine for Arabs and State of Israel for Jews adjacent to each other to fulfil the needs of both the peoples rooted in the same land.

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The survey found that Palestinians under 34 and living in Gaza City and Khan Yunis were more likely to consider leaving, according to The Telegraph.

Among those who wished to leave, the survey found that Germany was the most popular destination followed by Egypt, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Trump has said that Palestinians expelled from Gaza would be resettled in West Asian or African nations. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has suggested that expelled Palestinians could be resettled in Saudi Arabia where they could be granted a Palestinian state. However, Arab nations have rejected such suggestions.

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The Associated Press has reported that US and Israeli officials have started talks to resettle expelled Palestinians in Africa’s Sudan, Somalia, and Somaliland.

At a summit of Arab nations earlier this month, Egypt floated a plan for post-war that rejects the expulsion of Palestinians and seeks to rebuild Gaza and instal an interim Palestinian administration of technocrats.