Trump has pushed Jordan and Egypt to take in Palestinians to ‘cleanse’ Gaza

President Trump’s proposal to “clean up” the Gaza Strip and to ask Egypt and Jordan to take more questions on Sunday about the conflict between the United States and Israel’s closest neighbor in the Middle East .

The comments of Mr. Trump appears to be correct in his desire for Israel to encourage Palestinians to leave Gaza – an idea that goes to the heart of Palestinian fears that they will be forced out of their remaining homes.

“You’re probably talking a million and a half, and you’re cleaning the whole thing,” said Mr. Trump said Gaza on Saturday. “I don’t know. Something has to happen, but it’s literally a demolition site.”

Mr. Trump told the military that he spoke with King Abdullah II of Jordan, “I told him: I want to learn more because I’m looking at everything in the Gaza Strip now. and now it’s a mess.’

He said that the Palestinians could be in Jordan and Egypt, “soon, or maybe permanently.”

It was not clear from Mr. Trump whether he was suggesting that everyone in Gaza leave. The enclave has a population of about two million.

Mr Trump’s proposal was rejected on Sunday by Hamas, the militant group that runs Gaza.

“The Palestinian people of The Gaza Strip endured 15 months of death and destruction in one of the greatest crimes of the 21st century, to remain on their land and the homeland,” said Basem Naim, a member of the Hamas Political Bureau, referring to the war launched by the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. “We will not accept They are proposals or solutions, even if they do not seem to be experts, according to the American president.

But the idea seems to have been picked up by two hard-line Israeli politicians.

Bezalel Smotrich, the most likely finance minister in the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, sent a statement to X on Sunday in which Mr. Trump’s comments appeared, although he did not mention the president of He is even US Trump.

“After 76 years in which the majority of the population of Gaza has given up the harsh conditions to maintain the desire to destroy the state of Israel, the idea of ​​helping them find another place to start a new place, good life Ideas,” he said. “Once they sanctify the fear, they will be able to build a new and better life elsewhere.”

Mr. Smotrich has long advocated helping Gazans who want to leave and for Israeli forces to stay in the enclave to make way for Jewish settlements there.

Itamar Ben-Gvir, a former minister who resigned from the government of the agreement with the fire in Gaza that he said if the war returned, X said, “Congratulations to President Trump on the operation in Gaza Jordan and Egypt.

Millions of Palestinian refugees already live in camps in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, while others live in other Arab countries – including Egypt and the United Arab Emirates – and around the world. now. But the Palestinians and their Arab allies have already ruled out further resettlement outside the Palestinian territories, saying that forcing Palestinians to leave means wiping out hopes of a future Palestinian state. Without land, they say, there is no country.

The Egyptians were afraid that the Palestinians moving in Egypt could hurt the peace of the country, so they did not inform him that they would not accept any such arrangement. Jordan opposes the settlement of the Palestinians. No country had publicly responded to Mr. Trump’s proposal as of Sunday afternoon.

At the beginning of the war, Egypt was very concerned about the performance that would send to the existing territory in its territory, so it made Israel realize the peace period in the old-Egyptian century, starting in 1979.

Mr. Trump made his comments about Gaza on an evening flight after a rally in Las Vegas. It is not clear whether we have changed American policy toward the Palestinians.

Under President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and other presidents besides Mr. Trump, have officially supported the establishment of a Palestinian state with an Israeli one, criticizing Israel for blocking Palestinian land by building them and assured that Egypt will not have to accept more Palestinians.

But upon the return of Mr. With Trump in the White House, all assumptions that have undermined American relations in the Middle East may now be dismissed.

Egypt and Jordan are both our allies in the region and our US administration has valued their stability in the Middle East. We both receive significant funding, with Egypt being the second largest contributor after Israel.

The Trump administration issued a memo on Friday about all foreign aid for 90 days, but set two major exclusions: support for Israel and Egypt. It is not known if Mr. Trump will try to use the military aid that Egypt can levy to force it to accept more Palestinian refugees.

The fear of being expelled from Gaza runs deep among Palestinians, who reject it as a repeat of what they call the Nakba – or “catastrophe” in Arabic – during their 1948 war. in 1948 a state. Many Palestinians still want to return to their pre-1948 homes, even though they now live in Israeli territory.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza are trying to return to their homes as the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel enters its second week. The second stop is only fighting between the two until October 7, 2023, when Hamas gave birth to Israel, killing more than 1,200 Israelis. Since then, the Israeli army has killed at least 46,000 Palestinians, according to the Gazan health authorities, who do not distinguish between combatants and civilians. It destroyed thousands of homes and buildings in Gaza and killed many Hamsi leaders.

Most of the two million Palestinians in Gaza have had to flee their homes at one time or another. And although aid has increased recently, the humanitarian situation remains fragile, with water, food and medicine running low and few hospitals operating.

Andrés R. Martínez SY Isabel Kersner Dedicated delivery.