US President Donald Trump’s Gaza take over plan is not the first proposal of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their own homeland. Since taking his office, the Republican has stressed on depopulating the coastal enclave, suggesting Egypt, Jordan and other countries taking them permanently.

Trump’s idea of taking over Gaza and displacing the Palestinians is not his own. It has been a foundational cornerstone of Israel. Trump’s call is latest in the long series of colonial calls of the Israel’s occupation syndrome, which started in 1948.

Tel Aviv, which was established in 1948, after forcing out Palestinians from their homes in Palestine, has tried all the tactics ranging from massacres, violent suppression, impoverishment, and immiseration, to bribes and incentives to drive out the land owners, which they occupy.

The October 7th attack from Hamas was takes as an opportunity to render Gaza inhabitable. Reportedly, it might take decades to clear out all the rubbles that was left behind in Gaza after Israel’s relentless bombing campaign.

Gaza became biggest open-air prison or a refugee camp in 1948, following the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Palestine. Israel has destroyed over 400 Palestinian villages. Over 200,000 out of the more than 700,000 displaced Palestinians sought refuge in the enclave, tripling its population. Today, more than 80 percent of Gaza’s population are refugees who were expelled or fled during the Nakba (the Catastrophe – 1948).

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Israel also killed over 2,700-5,000 Palestinians who tried to cross back into the villages they were uprooted from.

Since the beginning, US is complacent in all the terror activities in the region. In 1949, Israel and US stressed Egypt to sign an armistice deal, which took away a further 200 square kilometre from the Gaza Strip’s land mass to make it harder for Palestinian refugees to cross into Israel.

In 1951, Israel and US pushed Egypt to relocate thousands of Palestinians from refugee camps in Gaza into the Sinai desert. The 1952 Egypt, seeking international legitimacy, and internal crisis, complied to the pressure.

Reportedly, Cairo agreed to relocate 12,000 Palestinians from Gaza into the Sinai with UNRWA in return for $30 million from the US (equivalent today of $355 million). This move was coupled with Israel’s continuous attack on Gaza. What happened during last 15 months of war is not new for the Palestinians.

Palestinians resistance was fierce back then also. Outraged Palestinians took to the streets protesting the ethnic cleansing. Protesting against Egypt’s move to take Palestinians as refugees were met with protesting Palestinians who chanted, “They drafted the Sinai project in ink. We’ll erase it with blood”.

In 1956, Israel engaged in the Tripartite Aggression against Egypt and occupied Gaza for over four months, where the Israeli army destroyed vital infrastructure, including refugee camps and the railway, and massacred over 1,500 people in Gaza.

Another of Israel’s tactic in terrorising the Palestinians out of Gaza and towards Egypt included arresting all males aged 15-60 and incarcerating many of them, committing summary executions, assassinating activists engaged in armed or popular resistance, and taking children as human shields.

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The same what the world has witnessed for the past 15 month online.

Israel did the same in 1967, when Tel Aviv reoccupied Gaza and coerced over 45,000 Palestinians in Gaza to move to Egypt or Jordan during the war and its immediate aftermath. Those attempted to return were either killed or deported. Israel continued to terrorise Palestinians to Jordan until Jordan in 1968 banned them from entering its territory.

In 1968, Israel attempted a little pacified move by setting up “emigration offices” in refugee camps and offering “money and foreign passports to Palestinian refugees who agreed to permanently relocate abroad, primarily to Canada, Australia and Brazil, according to Dr Anne Irfan, as quoted by The New Arab. Israel also paid the costs of relocation, which reached half a million dollars for 200 families.

However, none of the moves attracted many Palestinians as Israel has intended.

Israel was able to push out some 20,000 Palestinians out of Gaza during the first six months of 1968. In 1970s, Ariel Sharon, who led 1953 massacre in Gaza, lead the Israeli military in sealing off Gaza with fences and entry points.

In her upcoming book, ‘A Short History of the Gaza Strip’, Dr Irfan noted that Sharon launched a ruthless campaign of “forcible expulsions, house demolitions and intensive indiscriminate violence” as well as summary executions. Sharon, who went on to become Israel’s Prime Minister, took particular aim at Gaza’s overcrowded refugee camps and tried to dismantle them altogether.

Israel recreated the assault in 2024, when it systematically bombed and displaced the Jabalia refugee camp. Sharon did the same in 1971. After becoming the Prime Minister of Israel, Sharon ordered his forces in 1971 to demolish over 2,500 homes in the Jabalia, Shati, and Rafah refugee camps. Over 16,000 Palestinians were displaced. Israel continued the destruction, slaughter, and forcible expulsions in the 1970s until 2005.

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By the 1980s, over one third of Gaza’s entire area was expropriated by Israel, giving settlers 400 times as much land, and as much as 91 percentage of water as an average Palestinian.

In 1993, Oslo Peace Accord was signed. They marked the start of the Oslo process, a peace process aimed at achieving a peace treaty based on Resolution 242 and Resolution 338 of the United Nations Security Council. The Oslo process began after secret negotiations in Oslo, Norway, resulting in both the recognition of Israel by the PLO and the recognition by Israel of the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people and as a partner in bilateral negotiations.

However, Israel still continued its fantasy of thinning out Gaza’s population. In 2004, Israel’s National Security Council chief, Giora Eiland, called Gaza “a huge concentration camp” and proposed annexing 600 km2 from Sinai to disperse the Palestinian population.

Whatever is happening in Gaza now is not new. From the plan deport million of Palestinians to making Gaza a living hell. Palestinian and Israel has been wrestling for the land for decades.