On a cold morning in central Gaza City, Nevin Al-Barbari, 35, sat in what remained of her family home, watching her two-year-old daughter, Reem, explore the rooms she had only recently come to know.

Outside, Israeli tanks rumbled two kilometres away. Al-Barbari had refused to leave, despite evacuation orders from Defence Minister Israel Katz, who had declared that anyone remaining in the city would be considered a terrorist or a supporter of terrorism. “We are civilians tired of displacement,” she said, her voice quiet but firm, “and he can confirm that.”

For Al-Barbari, as for hundreds of thousands of Gazans, the question of whether to support or oppose the peace plan that President Donald Trump unveiled last week has become inseparable from the question of survival itself. The plan — announced with backing from Arab and European Governments — calls for an immediate ceasefire, the entry of humanitarian aid, a gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces, and the transfer of Gaza’s administration to an international peacekeeping committee led by Trump and former British prime minister Tony Blair. It arrived after nearly two full years of war, after the destruction of much of Gaza’s infrastructure, after tens of thousands of deaths, and after a pattern of ceasefires that offered brief respite only to collapse into renewed violence.

Since 7 October 2023, when the war began, Gazans had imagined it would last a month, perhaps slightly longer, as previous conflicts had. Instead, it intensified with extraordinary ferocity. Entire neighbourhoods were levelled. Civilians were systematically displaced from their homes and forced into tent encampments. The war evolved from bombardment and displacement into a slower, grinding deprivation: hunger, thirst, the absence of medicine. Each ceasefire — two weeks here, 40 days there — proved insufficient to restore what had been lost, insufficient even to allow people to catch their breath.

When Trump assumed office in January 2025, many in Gaza placed their hopes on him. They believed he possessed the leverage necessary to compel Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to halt the offensive. And for a time, it seemed they were right: Trump brokered a ceasefire that lasted nearly 40 days. But when it ended, the war resumed with a violence that felt almost retaliatory. The crossings were sealed. Food, water and medicine were blocked from entering the Gaza Strip. Those who had dared to hope found themselves thrust back into a reality more desperate than before.

Now, with Trump’s new proposal circulating in the international press, a debate has erupted among Gazans that cuts to the heart of what it means to endure occupation, to survive war and to choose between competing visions of dignity and pragmatism. On social media and in the displacement camps, voices have multiplied, some demanding that Hamas accept the plan immediately, others warning that acceptance would amount to surrender, a capitulation that would formalise international control over Gaza and extinguish any hope of true liberation.

Al-Barbari’s own journey through the war has been marked by displacement and fragile returns. She fled Gaza City at the beginning of the conflict in late October, 2023, when Reem was just days old. The journey south along Salah Al-Din Street brought her to the Netzarim checkpoint, where an Israeli soldier stopped her, suspicious of the bundle in her arms. He ordered her to lift the baby and strip away the blanket. Only after this humiliation was she allowed to pass. She spent months moving between Rafah and Deir Al-Balah, living in tents, waiting for the war to end. That moment came, briefly, during the January ceasefire, when she was able to return to Gaza City. For the first time, Reem knew the contours of her own home, the feel of her own bedroom.

Two months ago, Al-Barbari’s father and brother were killed in an airstrike while they were inside that house. Their graves now lie nearby. “We feel that we are close to them,” she said. The thought of fleeing again — of abandoning those graves, of taking her daughter away from the only place she had ever known as home — was unbearable. And so Al-Barbari remains, even as the tanks advance, even as Katz’s evacuation orders echo through the city. She is waiting for Hamas to accept Trump’s plan. “I am asking Hamas to stop the war by agreeing to Trump’s plan to end this ugly war,” she said. “My daughter is now speaking. She has been living under war for two years and now we are living in the most difficult conditions after the Israeli army closed the city’s exits.” She paused, then added: “I feel anxious as the bombing continues and gets closer to us. That’s why I am asking Hamas to quickly approve the plan to save the people of Gaza.”

Inas Al-Batniji, 46, shares Al-Barbari’s sense of urgency. “We are asking Hamas to agree to the plan, no matter the cost,” she told me. “We know that it includes harsh terms, but the most important thing is to stop the war now. Israel has destroyed everything in Gaza. Nothing is livable here anymore. What else are we waiting for?” Three months ago, her son, a young man in his 20s, was standing in front of their house when a bomb fell nearby. His leg was amputated. “What is his fault that he should continue his life without a leg?” she asked. The question hung in the air, unanswerable. “We are tired of the repeated displacement, high prices, famine and killing. We want any solution. The war has lasted two years and it hasn’t stopped, and now this opportunity has arrived before the whole world. That’s why we want Hamas to agree to it without hesitation, for the sake of the children, women, and youth who were killed.”

But not everyone in Gaza sees the plan as an opportunity. Salem Awad, 25, from Khan Yunis, views it with profound scepticism. “Unfortunately, after two years of a long war, the likes of which history has never seen, we are forced to consider a plan that is difficult for us,” he said. “The presence of an international administration over Gaza means that it will not be liberated from the occupation. We are facing a difficult phase for Gaza. We do not know what the future of our region will be with this strange plan, which I believe is an Israeli plan, not an American one.”

Awad acknowledged the exhaustion that pervades Gaza, the desperation for an end to the daily killing, the hunger, the cries of women and children. “But what the citizens are looking for is an end to the war, the entry of aid and the withdrawal of the army,” he said. “This is what people who are very tired of the war care about. We want the daily killing to stop. The cries of women and children from hunger must end, and in return, there must be confirmation of the presence of Palestinians on their land under full Palestinian administration. We are in a difficult phase, but unfortunately, there is no other choice.”

Maha Abu Alkas, 40, a resident of Gaza City, articulated the dilemma in starker terms. “At the moment of the recent announcement of the so-called ‘peace plan’ between Trump and Netanyahu, the people of Gaza found themselves at a critical crossroads,” she said. “Acceptance means giving up many cards, but it could also mean a break from the grinding mill of death that has been ongoing for two years, while rejection seems like clinging to dignity but leads to a harsher fate.” She described the choice as one between two wounds, both open, both bleeding. “Politically, this approach reinforces the idea that Gaza no longer has the right to be the decision-maker over its land and its weapons. From a humanitarian angle, it leaves its people stuck between one possibility that would ease the bloodshed and another that would multiply the losses.”

Abu Alkas reflected on what might have been. “The reality is that the destruction that struck Gaza did not begin today; rather, it has accumulated moment by moment,” she said. “Early settlements — even if painful — could have saved lives and kept the city alive. But today, with devastation dominating the scene, the question is no longer what we gain or lose, but how we escape from the deeper hole they are trying to push us into.”

The negotiations between Hamas and Israel have been characterised by stubborn refusals on both sides, each unwilling to compromise on core demands. For the people of Gaza, this intransigence has been a source of deep frustration. They have taken to the streets prematurely, celebrating rumours of ceasefires that never materialised. They have endured false hope after false hope. And now, with Trump’s plan before them, they find themselves divided – not over whether they want the war to end, but over what price they are willing to pay for peace.

Trump’s proposal emerged in the wake of intensified pressure from Arab and European nations, following Israel’s targeting of Qatar, a key mediator in the ceasefire negotiations. For many Gazans, the plan represents a last chance, an opportunity that may not come again. For others, it represents a formalisation of their subjugation, a surrender not just of territory, but of the very idea of self-determination.

In her home in Gaza City, Al-Barbari continues to wait, her daughter by her side, the sound of tanks drawing nearer. She has called on Hamas to act within two days, to approve the plan and end the war. Whether they will, and whether Trump’s proposal will succeed where so many others have failed, remains uncertain. What is certain is that after two years of war, the people of Gaza are being asked to make an impossible choice: between a peace that may not be just and a war that has already taken everything.

Ruwaida’s book, Stories from the War on Gaza, has just been published by Palaver Books and is available as a free download. This work provides a moving account of daily life in Gaza during the present conflict, with its pain, heroism, desperation and hope. Any proceeds from sales of the hard copy version will go directly to the author.

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.