‘We Will Not Leave Gaza City’: Palestinians Vow to Resist

After 22 months of war, approximately 1 million Palestinians, already displaced, living in tents or ruins, and suffering from hunger and lack of medical care, face another crisis as the Zionist regime’s security cabinet plans to seize control of Gaza City, forcing them to flee southward toward an uncertain future.

Umm Ibrahim Banat, a 55-year-old mother displaced four times from northern Gaza, expressed her fear and anxiety to The Guardian after hearing about the evacuation order for Gaza City, “Where will we go with the children and the elderly? I swear we are exhausted from displacement, starvation, and being driven from one place to another.”

“Now,” she said, “we are the walking dead.”

The regime approves plan to seize Gaza

Following a 10-hour overnight meeting on Friday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced that his security cabinet had approved a plan to seize control of Gaza City, further escalating the occupation’s war on Gaza, which has already claimed the lives of at least 61,000 Palestinians, the majority of them civilians.

Zionist Channel 12 reported that the plan, involving the deployment of ground troops into the territory, could displace tens of thousands of people, worsen the already strained aid delivery efforts, and push around 1 million Palestinians in Gaza City and surrounding areas toward evacuation zones in the southern part of the strip.

Heartbroken after losing her daughter’s entire family, Banat denounced Gaza’s unbearable conditions, the disease-ridden tent camps, undrinkable water, collapsed hospitals, and endless suffering, demanding to know what more could be taken from a people who’ve lost everything.

Already preparing to leave

Abu Nasser Mushtaha, a 35-year-old father of four from Gaza’s Rimal neighborhood, expressed his fear for his family’s safety, stating, “If we are ordered to evacuate, I will leave everything and go, fearing for my family and children. The cost of staying would be too high. I have already lost enough; my mother was killed at the beginning of the war when the Israeli occupation bombed a neighbouring house.”

Mushtaha revealed he had begun financial preparations to cut costs while planning to take only essential belongings, grimly predicting that this impending crisis would undoubtedly mark the final destruction of Gaza’s population.

With over 90% of Palestinians already displaced at least once during the war and nearly 10% suffering injuries from Zionist attacks, the population now faces even greater suffering as the decimated healthcare system collapses further and the regime blocks most aid agencies like the UN from delivering critical assistance.

Defiance despite desperation

Hossam al-Saqa, a 46-year-old father of two from Gaza City, told The Guardian he couldn’t comprehend how authorities expected to relocate Gaza’s entire population to the already overwhelmed south, declaring his family’s determination to remain on their land despite the mortal dangers, vowing he would stay even at gunpoint.

“I see Netanyahu’s and ‘Israels’ propaganda as nothing more than media fireworks meant to intimidate and spread fear among the people,” al-Saqa said, adding, “This will not scare us, for God is with us, and He is stronger than everyone.”

Al-Saqa, echoing sentiments widespread across Gaza City, interpreted the occupation plan as a coercive tactic to force Hamas into surrender following the collapse of last month’s US, Egyptian, and Qatari-mediated negotiations.

Ibrahim Abu al-Husni, a 47-year-old man who lost his 23-year-old son in the war, defiantly declared his attachment to his homeland, stating, “This is our land where we grew up since childhood, and we will not give it up easily. I will not leave this city.”

“I will live here, and I will die here,” he assertively stated.

Resistance factions respond

Palestinian factions condemn the “cabinet” plan to occupy Gaza and impose full “security control.”

Palestinian Islamic Jihad treated the decision as a complete escalation of genocide, fearing more massacres. They described it as “Nazi-style terror” and held Arab and Western governments, alongside the U.S., responsible for enabling escalation. They stated the occupation torpedoed all exchange talks and “those betting on a settlement got slapped.” They vowed to continue resistance.

The Mujahideen Movement stressed continuity, stating that this is the same ethnic cleansing war of the last ~2 years. They blamed full U.S. cover and global paralysis for the new plan. They also accuse the enemy of gambling with its own captives for Netanyahu’s personal agenda. They asserted that resistance weapons the people’s trust and called the Arab-Islamic street to mass mobilization.

Popular Resistance Committees casted the plan as proof of the enemy’s political and battlefield failure. They issued a sharp red line: any foreign force stepping into Gaza will be treated as an occupying enemy. They affirmed that “the day after” is decided by Palestinians themselves and insisted that captives can only be freed through negotiations, as the army has already failed. Directed towards the Palestinian Authority, they urged them to end reliance on the U.S./‘international legitimacy,’ end division, and unite. They also called the region to general mobilization and to besiege U.S/zionist/Western embassies.

Hamas focused on Gaza City. They called the plans to occupy it and evacuate 1 million residents a war crime. They highlighted the linguistic gymnastics between “control” vs. “occupation” as a tacit admission of Geneva convention violations. Hamas stated that this move sacrifices the enemy’s captives and explains the occupation’s sudden walkout from near-final talks. Hamas showed real flexibility, even openness to a comprehensive all-for-all exchange that ends the war and lifts the siege. They blamed the U.S. for cover and arms and urged UN/ICJ/ICC to act. They warned any further invasion would be met with resistance.

While the combined factions released this statement:

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

Regarding the leaked information circulating about the enemy government’s intention to decide on the full occupation of the Gaza Strip, and the statements of the criminal Netanyahu regarding imposing military control over the Strip, we, the resistance factions, affirm the following:

First: These statements and leaks reveal the enemy’s political and field impotence, after two years of dismal failure in achieving its goals, despite committing massacres and crimes and relying on unlimited support from global colonial powers.

Second: The threat of a full military occupation of Gaza is a declaration of genocidal intentions and a desperate attempt to subjugate our people and their resistance. These intentions will not pass without a heavy price, and the field will be the decider, as it always has been.

Third: Gaza is not a vacant geographical area looking for someone to fill it; rather, it is a land saturated with the blood of martyrs and the strength of mujahideen. Any attempt at direct occupation will be a new quagmire that burns whoever penetrates it, and the resistance will enter a phase of more severe and painful confrontation for this enemy.

Fourth: Netanyahu is trying to cover up his political and military defeat by marketing illusions of control. We tell him clearly: Gaza will not be managed from Tel Aviv, nor from any foreign capital, but by the will of its resisting people.

Fifth: The Palestinian resistance, with all its factions, is united in the field of confrontation, and any occupation decision will send it back from where it came, defeated and broken, as always. The enemy is deluded if it thinks it will free its prisoners from the grip of the resistance by military force. We affirm that its prisoners will only be released through negotiations and at heavy prices.

“And those who have wronged are going to know to what kind of return they will be returned.”

Palestinian Resistance Factions.
Thursday, 13 Safar 1447 AH, corresponding to August 07, 2025 AD.