Trump repeats suggestion Palestinians should leave Gaza for Egypt and Jordan

Bethan McKernan & Patrick Wintour

The Guardian  /  January 28, 2025

US president insists leaders of both countries would agree to move that could be ‘temporary or long-term’.

Donald Trump has repeated his suggestion that large numbers of Palestinians should leave Gaza for Egypt or Jordan, despite widespread opposition to the proposal from Palestinian leadership, the UN and US allies in the region.

Speaking to reporters onboard Air Force One on Monday night, the US president was asked about his comments over the weekend about “cleaning out” the Gaza Strip either “temporarily or long-term”. Trump reiterated he would “like to get [Palestinians from Gaza] living in an area where they can live without disruption and revolution and violence so much”.

The remarks, apparently at odds with existing US policy and international law, have been widely rejected by the Arab world as a potentially fatal blow to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but were embraced by Israel’s right wing.

Trump also said he was due to meet his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, “soon”, amid speculation the longtime Israeli premier would be the first foreign leader to visit the White House during Trump’s second term.

“When you look at the Gaza Strip, it’s been hell for so many years,” Trump said on Monday.

“There have been various civilisations on that strip. It didn’t start here. It started thousands of years before, and there’s always been violence associated with it. You could get people living in areas that are a lot safer and maybe a lot better and maybe a lot more comfortable.”

Trump said he had spoken to the Egyptian president, Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, and Jordan’s King Abdullah on Sunday, and insisted that both leaders would agree to the plan. Abdullah also spoke on Monday with Trump’s secretary of state, Marco Rubio, but the issue was not mentioned in a state department statement on the call.

“I wish [Sisi] would take some. We helped them a lot, and I’m sure he’d help us. He’s a friend of mine. He’s in … a rough neighbourhood. But I think he would do it, and I think the king of Jordan would do it too,” Trump said.

Both Amman and Cairo have been adamant so far that Trump’s suggestion is a non-starter. Reports in the Egyptian media on Tuesday claimed Sisi had not spoken to Trump.

For Palestinians, there is little faith in the idea of temporary relocation to allow for reconstruction, given a history of repeated displacements since the creation of Israel in 1948.

Fifteen months of war have levelled 70% of Gaza’s infrastructure and left the Palestinian territory’s 2.3 million population in the depths of a devastating humanitarian crisis. More than 47,000 people were killed before a ceasefire went into effect earlier this month, and about 90% of residents have been displaced from their homes, some multiple times. About 1,200 Israelis and foreigners were killed in Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack that triggered the conflict, and another 250 taken hostage.

On Tuesday, a slower flow of people streamed back to northern Gaza after Israel the day before opened military checkpoints dividing the territory for more than a year. Between 200,000 and 300,000 people travelled to destroyed neighbourhoods in the north through the Netzarim Corridor on Monday, by foot or in cars that were screened by Egyptian contractors with the help of a US private security firm.

Mahmoud Kashko, who has been displaced to Mawasi in southern Gaza, said he had been swept up in the collective momentum on Tuesday. “I was hesitant to return to Gaza City, but when I saw hundreds of thousands of people coming back, I decided to return,” he told Agence France-Presse.

“I arrived at my home today. Of course, it’s destroyed like most people’s homes.”

Israeli media reported on Tuesday that mediators have begun preliminary work on the second stage of ceasefire negotiations, which is supposed to go into effect in early March. Israel is expected to completely withdraw from Gaza and Hamas is supposed to disarm during the crucial next phase of the deal, but many details remain unclear.

The Times of Israel on Tuesday quoted an anonymous security cabinet minister as saying that Trump’s statements on resettling Palestinians outside Gaza had most likely been “partially designed to help Netanyahu hang on to support from far-right allies who have destabilised his coalition” in protest against the hostage release and ceasefire deal.

At least 500 trucks of aid a day are now supposed to enter the besieged Palestinian territory, the minimum aid agencies say is needed, and up from an average of 72 a day in December.

Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, on Tuesday spoke on the UN relief and works agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA), ahead of a deadline this week for Israel cooperation with it.

He told reporters Israel will cease all contact with UNRWA and anybody acting on its behalf, and forbid it from “operating within the sovereign territory of the state of Israel”. He said Israel would not prevent UNRWA from operating in Gaza but he expected other UN agencies to gradually take over responsibility for the distribution of aid in the territory.

Aid agencies have expressed deep concern over the UNRWA ban’s impact on relief efforts, which rely on the agency’s staff, facilities and logistical capabilities. Another 900,000 Palestinians in the West Bank rely on the organisation for basic services, which the semi-autonomous Palestinian Authority does not have the capacity to take over, leading to fears it could collapse altogether.

Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA’s commissioner general, told the security council on Tuesday that the agency was the subject of a “fierce and absurd” disinformation campaign designed to “strip Palestinians of refugee status and to deny their right to self-determination.

“If the UN allowed UNRWA to implode, the repercussions will not be confined to national borders and will only further destabilise the region,” he said.

Decades of friction between Israel and UNRWA came to a head in the aftermath of 7 October, in which Israel alleged 12 UNRWA employees took part. The agency fired several staff members as a result of an independent inquiry.

Bethan McKernan is Jerusalem correspondent for The Guardian

Patrick Wintour is diplomatic editor for The Guardian