With fighting continuing unabated and the prospects for a direct confrontation between Iran and Israel rising, the region is now in a new period of internal and cross-border displacement that has already uprooted millions.
As scholarsof migration, we fear that the results of such displacement will affect the region for years to come – and is likely to further hamper the ability of the region’s people to live safe and secure lives.
Displaced and trapped in Gaza
Israel’s ongoing attacks have forced nearly 2 million Palestinians to flee their homes in Gaza over the past year, amounting to 9 in 10 inhabitants of the densely populated strip.
What is unique about the scale of the displacement in Gaza is that nearly all internally displaced persons remain trapped, unable to leave the territory amid Israel’s ongoing border closure and bombardment.
This has intensified cascading humanitarian crises, including famine and the spread of disease, along with countless other hardships that make normal life nearly impossible.
For many Palestinians in Gaza, the yearlong bombardment has meant repeated displacement as Israeli attacks shift from area to area, amid shrinking humanitarian spaces.
The situation in Gaza is structurally different from previous displacement crises in the region – even in civil war-torn Syria, where cross-border aid operations have constantly been on the brink of collapse. That’s because Israel continues to limit and block aid into the territory, and humanitarian workers struggle to provide the bare minimum of food, shelter and medical care during bombing campaigns that have rarely stopped.
A year of conflict has ushered in a new era of mass displacement in the Middle East.
With fighting continuing unabated and the prospects for a direct confrontation between Iran and Israel rising, the region is now in a new period of internal and cross-border displacement that has already uprooted millions.
As scholarsof migration, we fear that the results of such displacement will affect the region for years to come – and is likely to further hamper the ability of the region’s people to live safe and secure lives.
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