Palestinians and Arab states reject Trump’s Gaza takeover plan
ReutersThe Palestinian president said he strongly rejected President Donald Trump’s proposal to take over Gaza and relocate 2.1 million Palestinians there.
Mahmoud Abbas stressed: “We will not allow our people’s rights … to violate.
Hamas’ 15-month war with Israel caused widespread damage, and he said Trump’s plans will “fire” in the region.
The idea was also rejected by regional powers including Jordan and Egypt, with the U.S. president hoping to accept many displaced Gazans and some key American allies.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Gaza is an integral part of the future Palestinian state and warned against “ethnic cleansing of any kind.”
At a meeting in New York, Palestinians’ right to live on their own land is becoming increasingly out of reach. He said the world “has seen the fearful, dehumanizing and demonizing of the entire people”.
Saudi Arabia said Palestinians will “not move from their land” and that without a Palestinian state it will not normalize ties with Israel.
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Trump’s proposal could “change history” and “worth attention.”
Trump’s proposal comes two weeks after the start of a fragile ceasefire in Gaza, during which Hamas released some Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons.
The Israeli military launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to the unprecedented cross-border attack on October 7, 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage.
More than 47,540 people have been killed in Gaza and 111,600 injured in Gaza, according to the Hamas-Ministry of Operations in the region.
Most of Gaza’s population has also been displaced multiple times, with an estimated nearly 70% of buildings being damaged or damaged, health care, water, sanitation and sanitation systems already collapsed, and food, fuel, medicine and shelter shortages.
President Trump’s first major comment on Middle East policy has undermined our decades of thinking about the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
He will tell White House reporters Tuesday night with the visiting Israeli Prime Minister.
“We will have it and be responsible for demolishing all the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, leveling the site and getting rid of destroyed buildings.”
Trump said Palestinians living in Gaza must relocate to achieve his vision of creating the “Middle Eastern Riviera” and place it in Jordan, Egypt and other countries.
When asked whether refugees were finally allowed to return, he said that the “people of the world” would live in Gaza and then join “also Palestinian.”
Trump also refuted previous objections from leaders of Jordan and Egypt to attract refugees and insisted that they will eventually “open hearts and will give us the land we need to accomplish this.”
Netanyahu later said, “It is nothing wrong to allow Gaza people who want to leave the territory.
“They can leave, and then they can come back, they can relocate and come back. But you have to rebuild Gaza,” he told Fox News on Wednesday.
An Israeli official who asked not to be named was also quoted as saying that Trump’s thoughts exceeded all his “expectations and dreams.”
The far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezales Smotrich said the proposal was “the real answer to October 7” and promised to “exactly bury the dangerous ideas of the Palestinian State.”
The White House tried to clarify President Trump’s proposal, spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told reporters that the president is committed to rebuilding Gaza and relocating its residents “temporarily”. Trump said on Tuesday that displacement will be permanent.
She also said the president has not yet promised to send U.S. troops to Gaza.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio described the plan as a “generous offer” to rebuild Gaza, rather than a hostile takeover.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth praised Trump for his “out-of-the-box” thinking and said the Pentagon was “ready to see all the options related to the enclave.”
Palestinian leaders condemned the plan in a statement issued on Wednesday.
“These appeals are serious violations of international law,” President Abbas said, adding that “peace and stability will not be achieved in the region without a Palestinian state being established”.
Abbas led Hamas rival Fatah and ruled parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
He declared that Palestinians would not “give up their land, rights and sacred sites” and that “the Gaza Strip is an integral part of the land in the Palestinian State, as well as the West and East Coasts and East Jerusalem.”
“This is a call for ethnic cleansing, forced to be displaced and expelled from the homeland by people. Dangerous,” Husam Zomlot, head of the Palestinian missionary, told the BBC.
Hamas, who has been banned as a terrorist organization in Israel, the United States, Britain and other countries, said in a statement that Trump “is aimed at getting the United States to occupy the Gaza Strip.”
It warned that his proposal “is aggressive to our people, not stable in the region, and will only place oil on fires”.
Palestinians in Gaza also said the plan was completely impossible.
A man told the BBC Arabic: “We have endured the explosion and destruction for nearly a year and a half, but we are still in Gaza.”
“We would rather die in Gaza than leave it. We will stay here until we rebuild it. Trump can do it as he wishes, but we firmly rejected his decision.”
The UN Human Rights Office warns that under international law, any person in occupied territories are strictly prohibited from being transferred or deported.
Palestinians are also afraid of repeating “nakba” or “catastrophe” when thousands fled or were deported before and during the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.
Many of these refugees end up in Gaza, where they and their descendants make up three-quarters of the population. According to the United Nations, another 900,000 registered refugees live in the West Bank, Israel, together with Gaza, occupied by the Middle East War in 1967, while 3.4 million others live in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.
Israel unilaterally withdrew its troops and settlers in 2005, although it retained control of its shared borders, airspace and coastline, thus effectively controlling the movement of people and cargo. Due to Israel’s level of control, the United Nations still regards Gaza as an Israeli-occupied territory.
The Saudi Arabian Foreign Ministry said the kingdom “clearly rejected” Trump’s proposal to post-war Gaza and reiterated that it would continue its efforts to build an independent Palestinian state and “no diplomatic relations with Israel.”
It added: “It is impossible to achieve durability and justice without the Palestinian people’s legal rights.”
After talks in Cairo, Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said he had agreed with the Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa. and refuse to leave it”.
At a later meeting with President Abbas in Amman, Jordan King Abdullah II expressed his “rejection of any Palestinians who attempted to annex the land or replace Gaza and Western Banks” and called for “supporting Palestinians on the land Unswervingly”. palace.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said it was “unacceptable” to relocate Palestinians from Gaza in any form, adding: “It’s ridiculous to even consider this.”
Western governments also alerted any forced displacement.
The French Foreign Ministry said this would be “a serious violation of international law, an attack on the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinians, a major obstacle to the two-state solution, and a major instability factor for our close partners Egypt and Jordan, as well as the region as well as the region as a whole.”
British Prime Minister Sir Kyle Stemmer said Palestinians “must be allowed to go home.”
“They must be allowed to rebuild and we should work with them on the way to a two-state solution,” he told parliament.
