Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority oppose Mr. Trump’s “clearing up Gaza” idea, which proposes taking Palestinians out of the area.
US President Donald Trump said on January 25 that he had a phone call with Jordanian King Abdullah II, discussing the idea of building settlements and transferring more than one million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to neighboring countries. Mr. Trump called this an idea to help “clean up the Gaza Strip” and establish peace in the Middle East.
This move has encountered opposition from a series of countries and regional organizations.
Foreign office Egypt on January 26 issued a statement expressing “continued support for the steadfast will of the Palestinian people in their territory”. The country previously announced that it would not accept more Palestinians and that any attempt at coercion could collapse agreements with Israel.
“Egypt opposes any violation of those inalienable rights through resettlement, land annexation or depopulation by displacement, promotion of transfer or displacement of Palestinians from their lands.” , whether temporary or permanent,” the statement said.
US President Donald Trump answered reporters in Los Angeles, California on January 24. Image: AFP
King Abdullah II warned that the idea pushed the Palestinians Jordan or Egypt as a “red line”, while Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi also affirmed that this country firmly opposes the relocation of Palestinians. “Jordan belongs to the Jordanians and Palestine belongs to the Palestinians,” he said.
President Palestine Mahmoud Abbas “expressed his opposition and strongly condemned any project” aimed at displacing Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. “Palestinians will not give up their land and holy places,” the Palestinian President’s Office quoted Mr. Abbas as saying.
Arab League also opposes “attempts to uproot the Palestinian people from their land”. “Forcible relocation and expulsion of people from their lands can be called ethnic cleansing,” the organization said.
Bassem Naim, member of the political office of Hamassaid that Palestinians would “sabotage any such project”, emphasizing that efforts to push Palestinians from the Gaza Strip have been unsuccessful for decades. Islamic Jihad Organizationan ally of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, called the idea of displacing Palestinians “sick”.
Meanwhile, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich described Mr. Trump’s idea as “fantastic.”
Mr. Trump’s comments seem to contradict decades of US foreign policy of supporting a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There are an estimated 5.9 million Palestinian refugees in the world, with millions living in Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and several Middle Eastern countries.
Gaza is a small strip of land, with an area of about 365 km2, bordering Israel and Egypt, the other side facing the Mediterranean. This is one of two Palestinian territories. The remaining area is the West Bank occupied by Israel.
The Gaza Strip was home to about 2.4 million people before the outbreak of large-scale conflict between Hamas and Israel. The retaliation campaign launched by Israel since October 2023 has left more than 47,000 people dead and more than 111,000 injured. Many areas in the Gaza Strip also turned into ruins and were engulfed in a humanitarian crisis.