Palestinian president, Hamas, Jordan condemn Trump over relocation of Palestinians

RAMALLAH: Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas condemned on Sunday “any projects” to relocate the people of Gaza outside the territory, after US President Donald Trump suggested moving them to Egypt and Jordan.

Without naming the US leader, Abbas “expressed strong rejection and condemnation of any projects aimed at displacing our people from the Gaza Strip”, a statement from his office said, adding that the Palestinian people “will not abandon their land and holy sites”.

Trump, less than a week into his second term as president, said on Saturday that he wanted Jordan and Egypt to take Palestinians from Gaza, suggesting “we just clean out that whole thing”.

The idea was swiftly rejected by Jordan, while Egypt has previously spoken out against any suggestions that Gazans could be moved there.

In the statement issued by the Palestinian presidency, based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Abbas said: “We will not allow the repetition of the catastrophes that befell our people in 1948 and 1967.”

The former is known to Palestinians as the Nakba, or “catastrophe”, when hundreds of thousands were displaced during the war the coincided with Israel’s establishment.

The 1967 Arab-Israeli war, during which Israel conquered Gaza and the West Bank, is known as the Naksa, or “setback”, and saw several hundred thousand more displaced from those territories.

Abbas also rejected what he called “any policy that undermines the unity of the Palestinian land in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including east Jerusalem”.

He called on Trump to “continue his efforts to support” the ceasefire in Gaza that began on January 19 and said the Palestinian Authority remained ready to take on the governance of the war-battered territory.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has repeatedly called for the return of Jewish settlers to Gaza, welcomed Trump’s call as “an excellent idea” and said he would work to develop a plan to implement it.

But a Hamas official reacted with suspicion, echoing long-standing Palestinian fears about being driven permanently from their homes.

Palestinians “will not accept any offers or solutions, even if (such offers) appear to have good intentions under the guise of reconstruction, as announced in the proposals of US President Trump,” Basem Naim, a member of the Hamas political bureau, told Reuters.

Another Hamas official, Sami Abu Zuhri, urged Trump not to repeat “failed” ideas tried by his predecessor Joe Biden.

“The people of Gaza have endured death and refused to leave their homeland and they will not leave it regardless of any other reasons,” Abu Zuhri told Reuters.

Jordan also appeared to reject Trump’s suggestion, with its Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi telling reporters that the country’s stance against any displacement of Palestinians from Gaza remains “firm and unwavering”. Egypt has yet to comment but has said on numerous occasions that it rejects any displacement of Palestinians.

Palestinian analyst Ghassan al-Khatib said Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, as well as the Jordanians and Egyptians, would reject Trump’s plan: “I don’t think that there is a place in reality for such an idea.”

Washington had said last year it opposed the forcible displacement of Palestinians. Rights groups and humanitarian agencies have for months raised concerns over the situation in Gaza, with the war displacing nearly the entire population and leading to a hunger crisis.

Washington has also faced criticism for backing Israel but has maintained support for its ally, saying it is helping Israel defend itself against Iranian-backed militant groups like Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.

“I said to him I’d love you to take on more because I’m looking at the whole Gaza strip right now and it’s a mess, it’s a real mess. I’d like him to take people,” Trump, who took office on Jan. 20, said after a call on Saturday with Jordan’s King Abdullah.

“I’d like Egypt to take people,” Trump told reporters, adding he would speak to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Sunday.

“You’re talking about a million and half people, and we just clean out that whole thing,” Trump said.

The population in the Palestinian enclave prior to the start of the Israel-Gaza war was around 2.3 million.

GAZA IS A ‘DEMOLITION SITE’

“It’s literally a demolition site, almost everything is demolished and people are dying there, 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,” Trump said.

Smotrich, who said only “out-of-the-box thinking” could achieve peace, said Trump’s plan would give Palestinians “the opportunity to build new and better lives elsewhere”.

“With God’s help, I will work with the prime minister and cabinet to develop an operational plan to implement this as soon as possible,” he said.

In a post on X, Francesca Albanese, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, said: “Ethnic cleansing is anything but an ‘out-of- the-box’ thinking, no matter how one packages it. It is illegal, immoral and irresponsible.”

Most of Gaza’s million population, which was 2.3 million before the war, have been internally displaced by the war. On Sunday, many of those rejected Trump’s suggestion.

“If he thinks he will forcibly displace the Palestinian people (then) this is impossible, impossible, impossible. The Palestinian people firmly believe that this land is theirs, this soil is their soil,” said Magdy Seidam.

“No matter how much Israel tries to destroy, break, and to show people that it had won, in reality it did not win.”

The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel’s subsequent military assault on Gaza has killed more than 47,000 people, according to the Gaza health ministry. The fighting has paused amid a fragile ceasefire.