MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
President Trump has described Gaza as a, quote, "hell hole," "a symbol of death and destruction," and, "a big pile of rubble." These are some reasons that Trump gives for why the U.S. should take over the enclave and permanently relocate its 2 million Palestinian residents. NPR correspondent Aya Batrawy in Dubai and NPR producer in Gaza, Anas Baba, examine what life actually looks like there and what it takes to survive.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: (Non-English language spoken).
AYA BATRAWY, BYLINE: Children play in a home in Gaza City, but this home is missing doors, windows, furniture, electricity and running water. This bombed-out structure belongs to the Al-Jalhoum family, who fled south and lived in tents for most of the war. They'd dreamed of returning home, but when they reached Gaza City two weeks ago, only an exposed stairwell and the outside walls were standing.
MAJD AL-JALHOUM: (Speaking Arabic).
BATRAWY: Majd al-Jalhoum says his five-story home is unlivable and could collapse at any moment. He knows it's unsafe for his kids, but he says he has nowhere else to go, so they've put up sheets around the perimeter of the home and are staying inside.
AL-JALHOUM: (Speaking Arabic).
BATRAWY: He says Gaza City's home and where he wants to stay.
Trump says his idea for relocating the entire population of Gaza to other countries would be for their own good. He then wants to turn this seafront strip of land into a real estate project. It's an idea Israel supports, some 16 months after the deadly attack on it by Hamas. Here's Trump last week, describing conditions in Gaza.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: This is just a demolition site. Virtually every building is down. They're living under fallen concrete that's very dangerous and very precarious.
BATRAWY: Israeli airstrikes have decimated Gaza. The U.N. estimates around 70% of all buildings are now damaged or destroyed.
(SOUNDBITE OF DEBRIS CLATTERING)
BATRAWY: There aren't enough bulldozers to lift the debris, which the U.N. says could take 20 years to clear.
(SOUNDBITE OF DEBRIS CLATTERING)
BATRAWY: Dust fills the air in this shattered home in Gaza City. Two young men are picking up the debris inside by hand. They'd rather sleep under a cracked roof than in a makeshift tent with no protection from the cold and rain. This drive to keep living and rebuild has brought a rhythm of sorts back to Gaza City.
TESS INGRAM: For example, I saw a tailor working on a sewing machine, and I saw a small hardware store selling some nuts and bolts and things like that.
BATRAWY: That's Tess Ingram, the spokesperson in Gaza for UNICEF, the U.N. agency for children. Ingram says she's seeing and hearing a determination to keep going and return to some sense of normalcy, but...
INGRAM: The hope they held on to of, you know, finding their homes again, of finding loved ones is crashing to a real heaviness as the reality of the situation sinks in.
BATRAWY: The current ceasefire is fragile, with fears of what's to come. And this is what people are waking up to now, after returning to Gaza City.
ANAS BABA, BYLINE: I'm in the meantime in the living room, that there is no windows. All of the windows are blown away.
BATRAWY: That's NPR's producer Anas Baba. I asked him to walk me through what his mornings are like now that he's back home.
BABA: So this is the log today.
BATRAWY: Are you, like, chopping it down, or what are you doing?
BABA: Yes, we're using an ax, chopping it down. It's wood from the door.
BATRAWY: He's in his back yard, chopping up a wooden door from his home for wood fire so he can cook eggs. He has to do this because most of Gaza's infrastructure, like electricity lines and water systems, were destroyed by Israeli operations in the war. But he found a few things in his home untouched.
BABA: I was super-happy that I had my cologne, so I started just, like, to put some cologne on me. I feel that I'm a human again.
BATRAWY: Yet life is still a daily struggle.
BABA: It's super tiring, super exhausting, but for someone who used to have an air fryer and he was having his own oven. I was trying to eat always the healthy foods as possible.
BATRAWY: But now, he says...
BABA: It's something you are forced to live.
BATRAWY: Aya Batrawy, NPR News Dubai, with reporting by Anas Baba in Gaza City.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
