Palestinians are angry with Trump’s comments over the weekend on ‘clearing out Gazans’ and sending them to Egypt and Jordan [Getty/file photo]
Palestinians in the West Bank city of Ramallah staged protests on Wednesday condemning US President Donald Trump’s comments on expelling Palestinian from Gaza, and relocating them to Egypt and Jordan.
Demonstrators carried Palestinian flags, banners which read “take the seven million Israelis to your country and leave the Palestinians to live in Palestine” and “Trump is a partner of the occupation in targeting the rights of the Palestinian people,” and held pictures of Trump with a red cross covering his face.
One activist, Omar Assaf, said: “The Palestinian people will not leave their land, and the people who presented 50 thousand martyrs, and faced destruction, killing and genocide, are the same people who went out with their heads held high two days ago, in a scene that history has never witnessed before,” in a reference to the return of displaced Palestinians to the northern Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, the US’ Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, is due to visit Israel on Wednesday, where he is expected to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials to discuss the next phase of the ceasefire deal with Hamas.
Witkoff, who is a real estate investor and attorney, might also visit the Gaza Strip during his trip. Such a visit would mark the first time a US official has set foot in the war-battered territory in almost 20 years, including a reported planned visit to the Netzarim Corridor, which Israel is reportedly seeking to occupy into the long-term.
Meanwhile, following the election of US President Donald Trump, Israel, and Saudi Arabia could be on the verge of normalising ties, Israel’s ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter told local media.
It follows reports that Witkoff met with senior Palestinian Authority official Hassan Al-Shiekh in the Gulf country on Tuesday, Axios said, amid efforts to continue with the ceasefire deal, and to broker a normalisation agreement between Israel and Saudi.
In other US news, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Egypt’s foreign ministry on Wednesday that both Washington and Cairo must “ensure” that the Gaza Strip will never be governed by Hamas, the Palestinian group who has ruled the Strip since 2007.
The State Department said that Rubio had stressed “the importance of holding Hamas accountable” in his phone call with counterpart Badr Abdelatty, as well as the importance of “cooperation to advance post-conflict planning to ensure Hamas can never govern Gaza or threaten Israel again”.
This comes as a ceasefire in Gaza continues to hold, with at least 376,000 Palestinians having returned to northern Gaza, the UN’s humanitarian body OCHA said on Tuesday.
Palestinians, however, are returning to homes reduced to rubble, in what some have described as homes that are “no longer recognisable”.
As a result, northern Gaza is in desperate need for additional shelters, for those who have lost their homes in Israeli bombing.
The journey back has not been easy for Palestinians due to the amount of rubble and other debris piled up on roads and streets, with many of them returning on foot.
The Gaza Municipality said on Tuesday that it will continue its efforts to open the city’s streets and remove rubble to facilitate the return of the displaced Palestinians, local media said.
Israel’s ceasefire violations
Meanwhile, the Israeli army has admitted it has targeted Palestinians attempting to return to their homes in Gaza’s north, claiming that their vehicles had moved without being inspected by them.
In a statement, the army said it had opened fire “to remove vehicles that were moving towards northern Gaza without being searched in an area not authorized by the agreement,” which it did not name.
The Israeli army also claimed that it has been working to “remove suspects who posed [a] threat” to Israeli forces still operating in the Gaza Strip, though without specifying the threats.
Despite its repeated violations, the Israeli army has claimed to be fully committed to the ceasefire agreement in place since 19 January, which entails the release of 33 Israeli captives and 737 Palestinian prisoners.
Early on Wednesday, Palestinian media reported that Israeli gunboats detained two fishermen off the coast of Khan Younis, south of Gaza.
Israeli forces also fired flares west of Rafah in southern Gaza.
On Monday, the Al-Awda Hospital in the Nuseirat camp said that a young girl was killed and three others were injured due to attacks on Palestinian returnees to northern Gaza via Rashid Street Turkey’s Anadolu agency said.
UNRWA ordered to close its Jerusalem offices
Israel’s envoy at the UN, Danny Danon, said on Tuesday that the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, must close its Jerusalem office and leave within the next 48 hours.
UNRWA’s head, Philippe Lazzarini slammed Israel’s “propaganda” against the agency and described the decision as “disastrous”.
Israel has made numerous claims that some UNRWA staff members colluded with Hamas members during the 7 October attack and have labelled the organisation as “terrorist”, without providing any substantial evidence.
UNRWA provides aid, health employment and education services to millions in the Palestinian territories and in Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan.
The decision will have a major impact on Palestinians, who rely on the UN agency’s essential services.
The decision was also slammed by a number of European nations who recently recognised the Palestinian state. The likes of Norway, Spain, Slovenia and Malta “deplored” the “adoption by the Israeli Knesset of legislation aimed at abolishing UNRWA’s activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory”.
West Bank raids enter second week
Twenty-three-year-old Palestinian Ayman Naji was killed by Israeli forces in Tulkarem, raising the death toll in the West Bank since Israel’s October 2023 war on the Gaza Strip to 884.
Naji was killed during an Israeli raid on the West Bank city, which has been witnessing an intensifation of Israeli incursions for the third consecutive day as part of the Israeli army’s latest operation in the occupied Palestinian territory.
The Palestinian health ministry said in a statement that a 25-year-old man identified as Osama Abu al-Hija was also killed late on Tuesday in Jenin following an Israeli air strike.
Jenin has been the site of an intense military operation for nine days in a row, which has now extended to Tulkarem and its camp, and other Palestinian cities.
Nablus, another flashpoint city in the West Bank, was also raided in the early hours of Wednesday, according to Al Jazeera Arabic. The Qatari broadcaster said a residential building had been stormed in the city’s Tawoon area. The Nur Shams refugee camp, the site of Israel’s violence over the past few days, is also located nearby, in the west of the city.
