President Trump’s proposal to “clean up” the Gaza Strip and ask Egypt and Jordan to take in more Palestinians raised new questions Sunday about the United States’ policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and two of its most important allies in the Middle East.
Trump’s comments appeared to reflect the Israeli far-right’s desire for Palestinians to be encouraged to leave Gaza — an idea that goes to the heart of Palestinian fears of being forced out of their remaining homelands.
“You’re talking about probably a million and a half people, and we’re going to clean it up,” Trump said of Gaza on Saturday. “I don’t know. Something has to happen, but right now it’s literally demolition.”
Mr. Trump told reporters on Air Force One that he had spoken to King Abdullah II of Jordan about the matter. and said, “I told him, ‘I’d like you to take more because I’m looking at the whole Gaza Strip right now and it’s a mess.'” He added that he also wished Egypt would take in more Palestinians and that o he spoke to the country’s president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, about this issue.
He said Palestinians could be in Jordan and Egypt “temporarily, or they could be long-term.”
It was not clear from Mr Trump’s comments whether he was suggesting that all the people in Gaza leave. The enclave has about two million inhabitants.
Mr Trump’s proposal was rejected on Sunday by Hamas, the militant group that rules Gaza.
“The Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip have endured death and destruction for more than 15 months in one of the greatest crimes against humanity of the 21st century, simply to remain on their land and in their homeland,” said Basem Naim, a member of Hamas’ political bureau. to a war that began with a Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. “That is why they will not accept any proposals or solutions, even if seemingly well-intentioned under the guise of reconstruction, as suggested by US President Trump.”
But two hard-line Israeli politicians seemed to welcome the idea.
Bezalel Smotrich, the far-right finance minister in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, released a statement on Sunday on X that appeared to refer to Mr Trump’s comments, although he did not mention the US president.
“After 76 years when the majority of the people of Gaza have been held by force in harsh conditions to maintain their ambition to destroy the State of Israel, the idea of helping them find other places to start a new, good life is great. idea,” he said. “After years of sanctifying terror, they will be able to start a new, good life elsewhere.”
Mr. Smotrich has long advocated helping Gazans who want to leave so they can leave, and for the Israeli military to remain in the enclave to pave the way for eventual Jewish settlement there.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right former minister who resigned from the government over the Gaza ceasefire deal but said he would return if fighting resumed, said on X: “I congratulate US President Trump on his initiative to transfer residents from Gaza to Jordan and Egypt.
Millions of Palestinian refugees already live in camps in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, while others now live in other Arab countries – including Egypt and the United Arab Emirates – and around the world. But the Palestinians and their Arab allies have long rejected any further resettlement outside the Palestinian territories, saying that forcing Palestinians to leave would mean erasing any hope for a future Palestinian state. Without soil, they say, there is no country.
Egyptian fears that Palestinians moving to Egypt en masse could threaten the country’s security also make it unlikely that it would agree to such a deal. Jordan also opposes the forced resettlement of Palestinians. Neither country had publicly responded to Trump’s proposal by early Sunday afternoon.
At the start of the war, Egypt became so alarmed by the prospect of any move that would send Gazans into its territory that it warned Israel that it was threatening the decades-old Israel-Egypt peace treaty that has been an anchor of stability in the Middle East since 1979.
Mr Trump made his remarks on Gaza on an evening flight after a rally in Las Vegas. It is unclear whether they signal a change in US policy towards the Palestinians.
Under President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and other recent presidents other than Mr. Trump, the United States officially supported the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel’s, criticized Israel’s extremist attempts to seize more Palestinian land by building settlements on it, and assured Egypt that it would not be forced to accept more Palestinians.
But with Mr. Trump’s return to the White House, all the assumptions that underpinned America’s relationship in the Middle East may now be overturned.
Egypt and Jordan are major US partners in the region, and successive US administrations have seen their stability as crucial to the stability of the wider Middle East. Both receive significant funding from the US, with Egypt being the second largest recipient of foreign aid after Israel.
The Trump administration on Friday abruptly froze all foreign aid for a 90-day review period, but made two major exceptions: arms support to Israel and Egypt. It is unclear whether Mr. Trump would try to use the military aid Egypt receives as leverage to try to force it to accept more Palestinian refugees.
Fear of expulsion from Gaza runs particularly deep among Palestinians, who dismiss it as a repeat of what they call the Nakba – or “catastrophe” in Arabic – the mass displacement of Palestinians from their homes in 1948 during the war surrounding Israel’s creation. state. Many Palestinians still yearn to return to their pre-1948 homes, even though they now sit on Israeli territory.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza are trying return to their homes as the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel enters its second week. It’s only the latter a pause in the fight between the two since October 7, 2023, when Hamas led an attack on Israel that killed more than 1,200 Israelis. Since then, the Israeli military has killed at least 46,000 people Palestiniansaccording to Gazan health officials, who do not distinguish between fighters and civilians. It also destroyed thousands of homes and buildings in Gaza and killed many Hamas leaders.
Most of the two million Palestinians in Gaza have had to leave their homes at least once. And even though aid has increased in recent daysThe humanitarian situation remains dire, with water, food and medicine running low and few functioning hospitals remaining.
Andrés R. Martínez and Isabel Kershner contributed reporting.
