Trump wants Egypt and Jordan to take in Palestinians

The President of the United States, Donald Trump, has said that he wants Egypt and Jordan to take the Palestinians from Gaza, which he called a “dumping ground”.

Trump said he told King Abdullah of Jordan: “I want you to get more information, because I’m looking at the entire Gaza Strip right now and it’s a mess.”

“You’re talking about a million and a half people, and we’re just removing all of that,” he said, adding that the move “could be temporary” or “could be temporary”. The US president said he plans to make a similar request to the Egyptian president on Sunday.

Hamas has vowed to oppose this, and the comments will anger the Palestinians in Gaza, who are their homeland.

“Our Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip have endured death and destruction for 15 months… without giving up their land. Therefore, they will not accept offers or solutions, even if they seem to have good intentions under the heading of reconstruction, as announced by the US. President Trump’s opinion ,” Bassem Naim, a member of the Hamas political movement, told the BBC.

“Our people, as they have thwarted all immigration and foreign plans for years, will also thwart such projects,” he added.

Most of Gaza’s two million residents have been displaced during the 15-month war with Israel, which has destroyed much of Gaza’s infrastructure.

The United Nations has previously reported that 60% of homes in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, and it may take years to rebuild.

Trump made his comments while speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One.

“Almost everything is being demolished and people are dying there.

“So I like to cooperate with other Arab countries and build houses in other places where maybe they can live in peace to change.”

Trump did not say much about the proposal, and the topic was not mentioned in the White House press release read on the call.

When asked about Trump’s comments, Abu Yahya Rashid, a displaced man in the southern city of Khan Younis said:

“We are the ones who choose our future and what we want. This land is ours and the property of our ancestors since time immemorial. We will not leave but as corpses.”

Decades of US foreign policy have been devoted to the creation of a Palestinian state, and Gaza is a major part of it. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu they deny this.

The US has previously stated that it opposes any expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza or the occupied West Bank. That’s what Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last year: “They can’t, they shouldn’t be forced to leave Gaza.”

More than two million Palestinian refugees, many of whom have been granted citizenship, live in Jordan, according to the UN. They are the descendants of approximately 750,000 Palestinians who fled or were forced from their homes during the conflicts surrounding the establishment of Israel in 1948.

Thousands of Palestinians have fled to Egypt since the war with Israel began, but they are not recognized there as refugees.

In October 2023, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi he said he rejected any deportation of Palestinians to the Sinai Peninsula, and that the only answer was an independent Palestinian state.

Some on the Israeli right want to return to Gaza and establish villages there. Israel ordered the withdrawal in 2005, when 21 villages were razed and about 9,000 residents were displaced by the army.

Former national security chief Itamar Ben-Gvir said he praised Trump “for taking steps to evacuate people from Gaza to Jordan and Egypt.”

“One of our demands from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to encourage free immigration,” he wrote on X.

Trump’s comments came as refugees were delayed in returning home In northern Gaza, Israel accused Hamas of violating the ceasefire agreement.

“There is nothing – there is no life, everything is destroyed. But to go back to your country, to your home is a great joy,” one man who is waiting anxiously told the BBC.

In a separate speech on Air Force One, Trump said he had terminated the former president Joe Biden has worked to deliver 2,000 pounds of bombs to Israel.

“They paid for them and they’ve been waiting for them for a long time,” he told reporters on Air Force One.

The US is Israel’s largest arms supplier, helping to build the world’s most technologically advanced military.

But the war in Gaza has led to new calls for the US to limit or stop arms exports to Israel, because of the destruction caused by US weapons in the region.