The news of Donald Trump’s election victory was received in Gaza with weary resignation. After more than a year of war, displacement, and starvation, Palestinians in the Strip have stopped expecting anything from American leaders — except more of the same. Whether it’s Trump, Joe Biden, or Kamala Harris, hope doesn’t register with us anymore. Instead, each new leader in Washington reinforces the same painful reality: unconditional military aid for Israel and policies that leave Gaza smoldering.
Dr. Rabaa Al-Dreimly, a media studies professor currently displaced in southern Gaza, remembers Trump’s first term vividly. His decision to relocate the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem felt “like a curtain falling on the illusion of peace,” she recalls. “It was a clear sign that the United States didn’t intend to act as a neutral mediator, stripping away even the pretense of concern for us.”
For Al-Dreimly, each policy during Trump’s first term — from the embassy move and the “Deal of the Century” to the unending diplomatic and political shielding of Israel — made it clear that the United States wasn’t just abandoning us, but erasing us. When she looks around at Gaza’s ruins today, she sees what years of U.S. support for Israeli violence have done. “Whoever sits in the White House doesn’t change what Gaza lives,” she says, her voice bearing a heavy weight.
Abdul Hadi Aoukal, a Gaza-based political analyst, feels similarly disheartened. For him, Trump’s pledge to end the war rings hollow; it sounds like another chapter in an old story of Washington’s deception and neglect of Palestinian suffering. “They act like we’re invisible,” Aoukal says.
And the people of Gaza know that, in all likelihood, this new chapter will end the same way: with more bombings, more loss, and more empty promises. But nor did Gazans harbor any real hope for a Harris presidency. The vice president has repeatedly backed Israel’s right to defend itself, and we know exactly what that really means: killing our children and destroying our homes without any accountability.
As Biden continued to supply American bombs to Israel’s war machine, Harris was at his side, doing nothing to stop it. “She endorsed these policies,” Aoukal affirms. “Her promises of change were never truly sincere.”
‘The rhetoric of peace is empty to us’
For 55-year-old Salwa Al-Louh, who is currently displaced with her family in the Al-Mawasi area of southern Gaza, the change in American leadership stirs something less than hope and more like tired desperation. She recalls years of U.S. leaders promising peace only to leave Gaza in ruins. “Every American president says they’ll bring peace,” she murmurs, “but each one has looked away.”
After seeing this pattern repeat so many times, Al-Louh has learned to rely only on her family and neighbors, finding strength in small daily acts of care. But as the war drags on and the winter approaches, living in the tent camp — with its rampant illness and biting cold — is growing more unbearable by the day. She dreams only of returning to her home in Al-Shati refugee camp, in northern Gaza. “We’ve had enough death and destruction,” she says. “I want my grandchildren to grow up without fear.”
Khaled Aslih, a Palestinian father of three in southern Gaza, tucks his children into bed each night without any assurance that they’ll be safe by morning. “With Biden, the [Israeli] attacks have only gotten worse,” he laments.
As far as Aslih is concerned, every American promise to end the war is just empty talk — words that don’t change the cold fear he and his family feel as they huddle together, praying that the walls around them will hold up for one more night. “They may say they want peace, but it’s American-made bombs falling on our homes,” he adds.
Nour Baraka, a widow raising four children in a displacement camp, responds to Trump’s victory with an exhausted sigh. “I don’t care who is president there,” she says. “I only want my children to survive.”
Baraka blames the politics of foreign nations, and especially the United States, for having reduced her life to a few square meters of tarp and dirt — a makeshift shelter that doesn’t shield her children from cold, hunger, or loss. Survival, for her, means depending only on each other, not on the distant promises of world leaders.
“Even though Harris’ words about justice for Palestinians sound compassionate, we know better,” Baraka explains. “As vice president, she stood firm with Israel, and had she been elected president she would have been no different. The rhetoric of peace is empty to us. What we need is action, not speeches that only extend our suffering.”
‘We survive on our own here’
Like many young Palestinians, 22-year-old Tareq Shahin has only known Gaza under siege. With hollow promises from U.S. presidents a constant throughout his life, he sees the American policy of arming Israel as not just a political stance but a permanent, unyielding commitment. “America props up Israel like we’re a side effect,” he says quietly, his facial expression betraying his inner anger.
However, Ramadan Al-Akhras, also 22, views Trump’s win with cautious optimism, albeit tainted by skepticism. “We don’t want anyone like Biden again,” he says. “His support for Israel destroyed Gaza, with all those American bombs falling on us.”
A university student from Khan Younis, Al-Akhras describes the constant power outages, lack of medicine, and scarcity of food that have defined his past year. He watches American elections like a spectator in a game where his own life is what’s at stake — knowing that, in the end, promises made on the campaign trail are rarely kept. Each new promise is only a reminder of the painful irony that as bombs fall, America continues to speak of peace.
Yasser Al-Madhoun, a father of five, remains in his ravaged home in northern Gaza while the rest of his family are displaced in the south. “We follow these elections because any change matters to us here in Gaza,” he says, but in the kind of flat tone that accompanies repeated disappointment. “We don’t want speeches or sympathy. We want an end to this endless war, to see our families safe in one place again.”
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Whether in Gaza, anywhere else in occupied Palestine, or in exile, Palestinians have learned the hard way that U.S. policies and speeches don’t soften our daily struggle. Samer Abu Deqa, a farmer, is currently displaced in the Al-Mawasi area west of Khan Younis. His barren fields in the east of the city are now a testament to a life’s work erased by bombs. Once fertile and green, his land is now a graveyard of his past efforts, scarred by airstrikes that make any hope feel hollow. “We survive on our own here,” he says.
“I wouldn’t have expected anything different from Harris as president,” Abu Deqa continued. “The United States has never cared about us, and she would have been the same. The bloodshed we’ve endured under her and Biden’s watch shows that American leaders will never stand up for us. We will have to continue surviving on our own, without illusions of foreign help.”
Ruwaida Amer & Ibtisam Mahdi contributed to this article.