‘Clean out’: Trump calls on nations to take in Palestinians
US President Donald Trump has declared he wants to “clean out” war-torn Gaza, promoting leaders to reject any efforts of “ethnic cleansing”.
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US President Donald Trump has called on Egypt and Jordan to take in Palestinians from Gaza, declaring he wants to “clean out” the war-torn territory.
Speaking with reporters on board Air Force One on Saturday, Mr Trump said he had spoken to Jordan’s King Abdullah II about moving Palestinians out of Gaza, which he liked to a “demolition site”.
“I would like Egypt to take people,” he told reporters. “You’re talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing and say: ‘You know, it’s over.’”
Mr trump added Gaza’s inhabitants could be moved “temporarily or could be long term”.
“It is literally a demolition site right now, almost everything is demolished and people are dying there,” he said.
“So I’d rather get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing at a different location where maybe they can live in peace for a change.”
Over 2.3 million people in have been displaced from Gaza in the 15 months since Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
In Gaza, cars and carts loaded with belongings jammed a road near the Netzarim Corridor that Israel has blocked, preventing the expected return of hundreds of thousands of people to northern Gaza.
Firm rejection
Mr Trump’s proposal has been met with firm rejection by Hamas and politicians, some of whom have condemned any efforts of “ethnic cleansing”.
Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas, who is based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, “expressed strong rejection and condemnation of any projects” aimed at displacing Palestinians from Gaza, his office said.
The Palestinian people “will not abandon their land and holy sites”, it added.
Independent Palestinian politician Dr Mustafa Barghouti also “completely rejected” Mr Trump’s comments, declaring “the conspiracy of ethnic cleansing will not succeed in Gaza or the West Bank”.
“What the occupation has failed to achieve through its criminal bombardment and genocide in Gaza will not be implemented through political pressures,” Dr Barghouti said in a statement, as per CNN.
Islamic Jihad, which has fought alongside Hamas in Gaza, called Mr Trump’s idea “deplorable”.
Bassem Naim, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, told AFP that Palestinians would “foil such projects”, as they have done to similar plans “for displacement and alternative homelands over the decades”.
The Arab League on Sunday further warned against “attempts to uproot the Palestinian people from their land”.
“The forced displacement and eviction of people from their land can only be called ethnic cleansing,” the regional bloc’s general secretariat said in a statement.
For Palestinians, any attempt to move them from Gaza would evoke dark memories of what the Arab world calls the “Nakba”, or catastrophe – the mass displacement of Palestinians during Israel’s creation in 1948.
“We say to Trump and the whole world: we will not leave Palestine or Gaza, no matter what happens,” said displaced Gaza resident Rashad al-Naji.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said “our rejection of the displacement of Palestinians is firm and will not change. Jordan is for Jordanians and Palestine is for Palestinians.”
Egypt’s foreign ministry also rejected any infringement of Palestinians’ “inalienable rights”.
‘Dire’ humanitarian situation as ceasefire continues
Meanwhile a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, which aims to end 15 months of fighting and see hostages released, has entered its second week.
During the first phase of the truce, 33 hostages should be freed in staggered releases over six weeks in exchange for around 1,900 Palestinians held in Israeli jails.
The truce has brought a surge of food, fuel, medicines and other aid into rubble-strewn Gaza, but the UN says “the humanitarian situation remains dire”.
Of the 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack, 87 remain in Gaza, including 34 the military says are dead.
The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 47,306 people in Gaza, the majority civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.
Israel has also reached a ceasefire with Hamas ally Hezbollah in Lebanon, although it stipulated that Israeli forces must withdraw by Sunday - which has not happened.
Lebanon’s health ministry said Israeli troops had killed nearly two dozen people as residents tried to return to their homes near the border.
The Israeli army said soldiers “fired warning shots” against “suspects”.
Originally published as ‘Clean out’: Trump calls on nations to take in Palestinians
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