Dividing Gaza .. a step towards entrenching division and serving the occupation project

The Israeli occupation army has officially begun to divide the Gaza Strip into two parts: Eastern Gaza, which is under its direct control and represents about 58% of the area of the strip, and Western Gaza, controlled by Hamas, which constitutes approximately 42% of the remaining area. The occupation has warned civilians against crossing the yellow separation lines drawn on the ground, threatening to kill anyone who approaches them, in a move that reveals a dangerous shift in the management of aggression and its political outcomes.

This field division cannot be viewed as a temporary military measure; rather, it is an actual implementation of part of a broader political plan aimed at reshaping Palestinian geography, in line with what was stated in the "Deal of the Century" and plans to rearrange the region. The occupation has not only destroyed the infrastructure of the strip and displaced its residents, but it is now seeking to re-engineer the reality of Gaza in a way that ensures its security and economic control over it on one hand, and perpetuates the state of Palestinian division on the other.

What is happening today seems to be a practical application of the "dual administration" model that keeps Gaza divided between two conflicting authorities:

The authority of the occupation that holds the field, controls the borders, corridors, and resources, and the authority of the de facto situation that continues to manage what remains of the strip, politically and geographically besieged, without a horizon or genuine national legitimacy.

The painful irony is that those who raised the slogan of "liberating and unifying Jerusalem" have contributed – consciously or unconsciously – to the division of Gaza itself, making Jerusalem further away, Gaza smaller, and Palestine more divided and weakened. With this transformation, the slogan turns into a retreat from the unifying national goal, and the occupation becomes the sole beneficiary of the continuation of this destructive division.

The current division of the strip constitutes a dangerous precedent that threatens to turn it into two contradictory entities in terms of system, administration, and loyalty, one subject to Israeli hegemony and possibly to subsequent international oversight, and the other mired in its internal crises. This means that the strip is heading towards a long phase of geographical and political separation, the effects of which may extend to the entire Palestinian scene.

What is happening today imposes on the Palestinian leadership, with all its factions and forces, to reconsider its priorities. What is required is not to manage the division or adapt to it, but to restore national unity based on a comprehensive liberation project that returns the Palestinian cause to its centrality and legitimacy, and prevents Gaza from becoming a double-walled prison: from the outside by the occupation, and from the inside by division.

It is time for the Palestinian to rise from the ashes of pain, like the phoenix, not to soar in the space of division, but in the sky of Jerusalem, freedom, and dignity. The homeland is not restored by slogans or division, but by the unity of will, purpose, and destiny.