Annaliese Hawkins | Middle East Fellow
A wall at Netiv HaAsara facing the Gaza border reads the words “Path to Peace” in Hebrew, Arabic, and English. Image sourced from Cole Keister via Unsplash.
The current crisis in Gaza, which stems from a long-standing history of conflict and hostility, mirrors in many ways the conflict and resulting refugee crisis in Afghanistan. With its complex history of instability and displacement, the Afghanistan crisis offers valuable lessons on the practices and policies that the international community should adopt to address Gaza’s urgent needs, plan for long-term recovery and minimise the displacement impacts of the conflict.
Afghanistan’s Historical Context and its Modern Implications for Gaza
Afghanistan’s refugee crisis is one of the most prolonged and severe in modern history, with millions of people requiring humanitarian assistance to this day. The country has experienced decades of conflict, political instability, and economic hardship since the 1970s, which forced millions of Afghanis to seek refuge elsewhere. The 2021 Taliban takeover and subsequent collapse of the Afghan government caused just over 6 million people to flee, driven by growing conflict and a lack of basic human needs. By 2022, 95% of households experienced food insecurity and 80% faced income reductions due to the conflict. Many of Afghanistan’s ongoing struggles can be attributed to insufficient aid received during conflict.
Now, Palestine faces similarly complex humanitarian challenges. The Israel-Palestine conflict in the Gaza Strip is rooted in early 20th century territorial disputes, specifically the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and subsequent displacement of Palestinians. While the events of October 7 raised global awareness of the conflict and political deadlock, tensions have been escalating since Israel's capture of Gaza in 1967. The current situation has forced over 2 million people into unsafe living conditions, characterised by active conflict, food insecurity, water shortages and a strained healthcare system. The international community must learn from Afghanistan’s slow recovery and ongoing crisis to avoid making the same mistakes in Gaza.
Lessons from Afghanistan: Mitigating the Effects of Displacement in Gaza
The Afghanistan crisis underscores the need to rapidly scale up aid in Gaza in order to avoid overloading aid systems and increasing the rate of displacement. In Afghanistan, the failure of the international community to provide constant, sufficient aid throughout the conflict has resulted in prolonged suffering and displacement. Though initiatives such as the US jetty supplying provisions are positive steps in the right direction, aid flows to Gaza are already well below the required levels and must urgently be increased. Multistakeholder collaboration among governments, international donors, and NGOs is vital to this achievement. If genuinely embraced, it can enable the swift and effective expansion of aid needed by organisations on the ground like the Red Cross to better meet local demands. Providing timely aid can significantly reduce the influx of refugees into neighbouring countries in the future, as those whose basic needs are met are not likely to become displaced. This can mitigate challenges faced by both the refugees and host nations, as seen in Afghanistan. Securing this aid can prevent the escalation of a displacement crisis before it peaks.
In addition to the immediate crisis response, the international community must collectively pursue a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. It is essential to ending the conflict and initiating Palestine’s recovery. A lasting ceasefire can also reduce the likelihood of displacement in providing greater stability and protection to civilians. The situation in Afghanistan serves as a stark reminder that temporary ceasefires often exacerbate harm due to their inability to implement effective and lasting change. The three-day ceasefires in 2018 and 2021 failed to halt the violence, as evidenced by the Taliban's eventual capture of Kabul. Similarly, in Gaza, brief ceasefires have not brought civilians any closer to freedom and have only exacerbated tensions, as seen by the recent killing of Hamas’ political chief. The international community must acknowledge and learn from the ongoing struggles of domestic and diasporic Afghan civilians and take decisive action to end the fighting in Gaza once and for all.
Finally, the international community must integrate long-term recovery planning into its current Gazan response. The Afghan crisis underscores the need for integrating long-term post-conflict planning and sustainable development principles into Gazan crisis response approaches to reduce future displacement. The World Bank’s Afghanistan Rural Enterprise Development Program, for example, demonstrates how targeted economic aid can create sustainable livelihoods in rural areas affected by conflict. The program established nearly 200 small and medium agricultural enterprises nationwide, providing jobs and stability for those involved. This alleviated several crucial drivers of displacement and exemplified how integrating long-term recovery planning into crisis response could yield sustainable benefits. Investing in Gaza's long-term development could help alleviate post-conflict economic pressures and reduce the likelihood of future displacement.
Lessons Learned? A Way Forward for Gaza
The critical status of the situation in Gaza means that more attention must be given to mitigating the effects of displacement in the immediate, short and long term. The international community’s experience with Afghanistan offers valuable practices to emulate and critical lessons from failures that should be avoided in this process. Establishing accessible regional aid, robust international cooperation for a ceasefire, and long-term recovery planning are critical to minimising the displacement effects of the conflict. As the situation in Gaza continues to escalate, urgency is paramount; the international community must draw on these lessons to avoid the mistakes of the past and develop a proactive and effective approach to the conflict in Gaza.
Annaliese Hawkins is the Middle East Fellow for Young Australians in International Affairs. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Melbourne, majoring in Politics and International Studies, with a minor in French. During an exchange semester at Sciences Po in France, she earned a Certificate of Social Sciences and Humanities. Her studies focused on Middle Eastern and South Asian politics. As a participant in the YAIA Fellowship program, Annaliese is excited to bring her background and skills to new projects and discussions.
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