Deir el-Balah, Gaza, Palestine, and Beirut, Lebanon – Palestinian and Lebanese civilians are bracing for more devastation once Donald Trump begins his second term as president of the United States in January.
While millions of Trump supporters celebrate his victory, many in the Middle East are looking on with trepidation.
In Gaza, the occupied West Bank and Lebanon, there are fears the loyal ally of Israel will embolden its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and far-right coalition government to escalate regional conflicts and destroy any possibility of Palestinian self-determination.
“I have no trust in America,” said Abu Ali, an 87-year-old in Gaza who has been uprooted from his home like most people there. “I’m expecting the war in Gaza to get even worse [under Trump].”
A grieving mother comforts a boy after her son was killed in an Israeli attack in the village of al-Shuhada near Jenin in the Israeli-occupied West Bank [Raneen Sawafta/Reuters]
US President Joe Biden’s outgoing administration has supported Israel in its campaign in Gaza.
Since the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, during which 1,139 people were killed and 250 taken captive, Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza – using US weapons – has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians and uprooted almost the entire population of 2.3 million people.
Palestinians there fear Trump will now greenlight plans to expel them from the strip.
The Republican president-elect has accused Biden, a Democrat, of restraining Israel in Gaza and made a vague promise to help Israel to “finish the job” if re-elected.
“I don’t know if the situation will improve under Trump. He might just [allow Israel] to deport us all [from Gaza] instead of killing us,” Abu Mohamad said with a hint of sarcasm from a displacement camp in Gaza.
Abu Ali believes Palestinians are at the mercy of whoever holds power in the US.
As a survivor of the Nakba (“catastrophe”), the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians by Zionist militias during the creation of Israel in 1948, he said he has witnessed several US presidents support Israeli atrocities against his people.
He expects that trend to continue under Trump and stressed that neither the Nakba nor Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza should be referred to as a “war”.
“There are no wars [between Israel and Palestine],” he told Al Jazeera. “It wasn’t a war then. And this isn’t a war [in Gaza]. It’s a genocide.”
A Palestinian woman who lost members of her family in an Israeli strike grieves near their bodies at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on November 3, 2024 [Bashar Taleb/AFP]
The view from Lebanon
In Lebanon, many people expect Trump to maintain or increase support for Israel’s war effort.
Israel claims to be battling the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, yet observers accuse Israel of waging a war against the country’s Shia community.
In Lebanon, political posts are allocated proportionally based on the country’s religious makeup. The president is always a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim and the speaker of parliament a Shia Muslim.
Since Lebanon’s civil war, which lasted from 1975 to 1990, Hezbollah has consolidated control over the Shia community by mixing religion, identity and resistance into a political movement that has resonated with many people. Hezbollah has also repressed opponents.
Over the past month, Israel has escalated its war against Hezbollah by bombing cities and towns in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley. Residents from entire villages and districts have been uprooted by Israeli fire, which has razed their homes and stoked fears of permanent displacement.
Ali Saleem, who was forced out of the southern city of Sour, said the war will continue under Trump. He said the president-elect may present a ceasefire proposal that is favourable to Israel but not to Hezbollah or Lebanon.
“Trump will put an offer on the table, and he’ll say, ‘Do you want to end the war or not?’” Selim, 30, told Al Jazeera. “If we say no, then war will continue.”
Ali Aloweeya, 44, added that Trump will likely defend “Zionist interests” in the region.
He fears Trump might even allow Israel to try to build illegal settlements in southern Lebanon, as some far-right Israeli activists and political officials have called for.
“If Trump returns and works again for the interests of the Israelis, then we will resist. We are a people of resistance.”
A woman in front of a bombed branch of the al-Qard al-Hassan finance group in al-Shiyah, Beirut, Lebanon [File: Wael Hamzeh/EPA-EFE]
Fear of annexation
During Trump’s first presidential term from 2017 to 2021, he adopted measures that harmed Palestinians in the occupied territory and surrounding region.
He cut off US funds to the UN Palestinian aid agency (UNRWA) and broke with decades of policy by moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Palestinians saw the moves as an attempt to upend their right to return to their homeland – as stipulated in UN Resolution 194 – and force them to surrender occupied East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state.
Israel annexed East Jerusalem and occupied Arab lands after defeating Arab armies in the Six-Day War in 1967.
Tasame Ramadan, a Palestinian human rights activist, now fears Trump may allow Israel to annex large swaths of the West Bank. Activists, analysts and rights groups said Israel has de facto done so already.
“As Palestinians, we don’t expect anything positive from Trump. His decisions are unpredictable, but he often ignores Palestinian voices, and his decisions have lasting impact on Palestinians,” said Ramadan, who lives in Nablus, a city in the West Bank.
She noted that Trump in 2019 recognised Israel’s sovereignty over Syria’s occupied Golan Heights, contravening international law.
She’s preparing for similar policies that could harm – even kill – Palestinian aspirations for self-determination.
“Trump’s action ignores our rights and our hopes for freedom and for a sovereign Palestinian state,” she told Al Jazeera.
“But I don’t think Palestinians would be happy if [US Vice President Kamala] Harris had won the election either. She deserved to lose due to her stance on the situation in Palestine and not stopping the genocide.
“In both cases, neither of these two [candidates] were our best options.”
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