Trump said he spoke to Jordan’s King Abdullah II about the idea and is set to speak to Egypt’s President Sisi on Sunday [Getty]
US President Donald Trump floated a plan Saturday to “just clean out” Gaza, and said he wants Egypt and Jordan to take Palestinians from the territory.
Describing Gaza as a “demolition site” after the Israel’s war on the enclave, Trump said he had spoken to Jordan’s King Abdullah II about the issue and expected to talk to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Sunday.
“I’d like Egypt to take people. And I’d like Jordan to take people,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One.
“You’re talking about probably a million and half people, and we just clean out that whole thing. You know, over the centuries it’s had many, many conflicts that site. And I don’t know, something has to happen.”
The vast majority of Gaza’s 2.4 million people have been displaced, often multiple times, by Israel, with at least 47,283 people being killed in the past 15-months as a result.
Trump said moving Gaza’s inhabitants could be “temporarily or could be long term.”
“It’s literally a demolition site right now, almost everything is demolished and people are dying there,” added Trump.
“So I’d rather get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing at a different location where they can maybe live in peace for a change.”
Palestinians groups in Gaza blasted the idea, with Palestinian Islamic Jihad calling it “deplorable” and saying that “this proposal falls within the framework of encouraging war crimes and crimes against humanity by forcing our people to leave their land.”
“As they have foiled every plan for displacement and alternative homelands over the decades, our people will also foil such projects,” Bassem Naim, a member of Hamas’ political bureau, told AFP.
A fragile truce and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas – which was signed on the last day of former US president Joe Biden’s administration but which Trump has claimed credit for – has entered its second week.
Bomb shipment released
Trump’s new administration has promised “unwavering support” for Israel, without yet laying out details of its Middle East policy.
Trump confirmed on Saturday that he had ordered the Pentagon to release a shipment of 2,000-lb bombs for Israel which was blocked by his predecessor Biden.
“We released them. We released them today,” Trump said. “They paid for them and they’ve been waiting for them for a long time.”
Israel’s war on Gaa has left much of the Palestinian territory in ruins, with infrastructure destroyed, and the United Nations estimates reconstruction will take many years.
In October during his presidential campaign, former real estate developer Trump said that war-torn Gaza could be “better than Monaco” if it was “rebuilt the right way”.
Trump’s son-in-law and former White House employee Jared Kushner suggested in February that Israel empty Gaza of civilians to unlock the potential of its “waterfront property.”
For Palestinians, any attempt to expel them from Gaza would evoke dark historical memories of what the Arab world calls the “Nakba” or catastrophe – the mass displacement of Palestinians during Israel’s creation 75 years ago.
Israel has denied having any plans to force Gazans to move, however prominent Israelis have floated the idea.
Members of the Israeli government have publicly supported the idea of Gazans leaving the Palestinian territory en masse.
Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich publicly welcomed Trump’s idea, saying in a statement that “the idea of helping them find other places to start a better life is a great idea. After years of glorifying terrorism, they will be able to establish new and good lives in other places”.
“Only out-of-the-box thinking with new solutions will bring a solution of peace and security.
“I will, with God’s help, work with the prime minister and the cabinet to ensure there is an operational plan to implement this as soon as possible,” Smotrich said.
