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Donald Trump has urged Egypt and Jordan to take in the majority of Gaza’s population, saying it’s time to “clean up” the territory in comments that are likely to anger Palestinians and Arabs across the region.
“I want Egypt to bring people. I want Jordan to bring people,” the U.S. president told reporters on Air Force One. “You’re talking about a million and a half people and we’re just cleaning up the whole thing.”
Trump’s proposal would upend decades of U.S. policy to promote a two-state solution based on the creation of a Palestinian state based on Israel, Gaza and parts of the occupied West Bank.
Trump said he had discussed his proposal to relocate Gaza’s population with Jordan’s King Abdullah on Saturday and would meet with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Sunday. ) on the phone.
Trump said that as a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas enters its second week, Gaza “literally is a demolition site, almost everything has been demolished, people are dying there, so I would rather Engage with some Arab countries in different locations where they can live peacefully”.
Trump said the population shift “could be temporary, it could be long-term.” Gaza’s pre-war population was 22 million.
Amman and Cairo have repeatedly refused to move Palestinians to their territory since the war began in October 2023, saying it would be a “liquidation of the Palestinian cause” at the expense of Israel’s neighbors .
Sisi has previously said the draw would threaten Egypt’s peace deal with Israel because of the risk that some of them would resume fighting the Jewish state from within Egypt’s borders.
Ha Hellyer, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington, said such a transfer “could be deeply stabilizing, especially for Jordan.” [which already has a large Palestinian population] For example, Egypt is likely to move Palestinians to the Sinai, as this could mean conflict between Palestinian militants and Israel. “
The economies of these two countries are weak and need our support, but their leaders do not want to be seen as complicit in what Arab public opinion considers a second “Nakba” or catastrophe, which is threatening their neighbors with tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees. of the Exodus country. The State of Israel was established in 1948.
“This will anger the Arabs because the historical record is clear; every time the Palestinians were forced to leave a part of Palestine, they never went back.” “A Gaza emptied of its inhabitants will not get any support from the Arabs or even internationally , because this is the definition of ethnic cleansing.”
He added that such a move would undermine prospects for normalizing relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, which is the focus of U.S. diplomatic efforts. “That would make this deal even less likely to happen in the near future,” Hellyer said.
Still, Trump’s Gaza proposal pleased Israel’s far-right leaders.
Treasury Secretary Bezales Smotrich described Trump’s proposal as a “fantastic idea,” adding: “Just out-of-the-box thinking about new solutions . . . peace and security”.
Former Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who resigned last week over the Gaza ceasefire agreement, “lauded” Trump for raising the idea.
Trump also confirmed that the Pentagon had removed the 2,000-pound bomb imposed by the Biden administration. “We’re releasing them today and they’re going to have them,” he said. “They’re paying for them, they’ve been waiting a long time.”
The ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas comes despite the successful release on Saturday of Israeli women from captivity in Gaza and the release of 200 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons.
Israeli officials said over the weekend that Hamas violated an agreement with U.S. brokers before it failed to free the hostage last believed to be alive – Arbel Yehud.
Mediators are working behind the scenes to find a solution for Yehud’s release, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said it would not allow thousands of displaced Palestinians to return to the north until “this issue is resolved” Gallons in the deal.
Israel’s ceasefire with Lebanon is also in jeopardy, with Israel making clear late last week that it would not meet Sunday’s two-month deadline to withdraw its troops from southern Lebanon.
Additional reporting by Sarah Dadouch in Beirut
