United States President Donald Trump has caused a flutter in the Middle East with his idea to end Israel-Hamas hostilities in Gaza, saying he would urge the leaders of Jordan and Egypt to take in the beleaguered Gazans.
After 15 months of war, Trump said Gaza had become a “demolition site”. “I’d like Egypt to take people. And I’d like Jordan to take people,” he told reporters.
Most Gazans are Palestinian refugees or their descendants.
“You’re talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing,” Trump said of Gaza, whose population is about 2.4 million.
“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 added.
What Hamas said on Trump’s proposal
Hamas, which recently entered into an uneasy ceasefire with Israel, rejected the idea. Bassem Naim, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, told AFP that Palestinians would “foil such projects”, as they have done to similar plans “for displacement and alternative homelands over the decades”.
He said the people of Gaza will not accept such offers.
Islamic Jihad, which has fought alongside Hamas in Gaza, called Trump’s idea “deplorable” and said it encouraged “war crimes and crimes against humanity by forcing our people to leave their land”.
Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich said Trump’s suggestion of “helping them find other places to start a better life is a great idea”.
He added: “Only out-of-the-box thinking with new solutions will bring a solution of peace and security.”
After a 15-month war with Israel, nearly 70 per cent of structures in Gaza are damaged.
In the war, which was triggered by Hamas’ attack on Israeli cities that killed 1210 people, 47,283 people, mostly civilians, died in Gaza.
Egypt has previously warned against any “forced displacement” of Palestinians from Gaza into the Sinai desert, which Sisi said could jeopardise the peace treaty Egypt signed with Israel in 1979.
Jordan is already home to around 2.3 million Palestinian refugees.
