Arab Nations Condemn Trump’s Plan to Displace Palestinians from Gaza to Neighboring Countries

Cairo (Quds News Network)- Several Arab nations on Saturday rejected U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposal to “clean out” the war-torn Gaza Strip by displacing 1.5 million Palestinians to neighboring countries, warning that such a plan would “threaten the region’s stability, risk expanding the conflict, and undermine prospects for peace.”
Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, the Palestinian Authority and the Arab League released a joint statement rejecting any plans to move Palestinians out of their territories in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
The Arab statement warned that such plans “threaten the region’s stability, risk expanding the conflict, and undermine prospects for peace and coexistence among its peoples.”
The statement followed a meeting in Cairo of top diplomats from Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, as well as Hussein al-Sheikh, a senior Palestinian official who serves as the main liaison with Israel, and Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit.
They said they were looking forward to working with the Trump administration to “achieve a just and comprehensive peace in the Middle East, based on the two-state solution,” according to the statement.
They called for the international community to help “plan and implement” a comprehensive reconstruction plan for Gaza to ensure that Palestinians stay on their land.
Trump reiterated his proposal to “clean out” Gaza by forcibly displacing Palestinians to neighboring countries three times, insisting that both Egypt and Jordan’s leaders would support the plan.
Last month, Trump said during a 20-minute question-and-answer session with reporters aboard the Air Force that he would like Jordan, Egypt, and other Arab nations to increase the number of Palestinian refugees they accept from Gaza.
On his larger vision for Gaza, Trump said he had called earlier in the day with King Abdullah II of Jordan and would speak Sunday with President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi of Egypt.
“I’d like Egypt to take people,” Trump said. “You’re talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing and say, ‘You know, it’s over.’”
Trump said he complimented Jordan for having successfully accepted Palestinian refugees and that he told the king, “I’d love for you to take on more, cause I’m looking at the whole Gaza Strip right now, and it’s a mess. It’s a real mess.”
Trump added the part of the world that encompasses Gaza, has “had many, many conflicts” over centuries. He said resettling “could be temporary or long term.”
“Something has to happen,” Trump said. “But it’s literally a demolition site right now. Almost everything’s demolished, and people are dying there.”
He added: “So, I’d rather get involved with some of the Arab nations, and build housing in a different location, where they can maybe live in peace for a change.”
Asked about his comments, Trump again told reporters on Air Force One he would “like to get them living in an area where they can live without disruption and revolution and violence so much.”
“When you look at the Gaza Strip, it’s been hell for so many years,” Trump said. “There have been various civilizations 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.”
Asked how the Egyptian leader received the idea, Trump said Sissi’s “response [was] that he’d like to see peace in the Middle East.”
“I’d like to see peace in the Middle East,” Trump added.
Pressed further, Trump insisted that both the Egyptian and Jordanian leaders would come around.
“I’d love to do that,” he said. “I wish [Sissi] 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 neighborhood. But I think he would do it, and I think the king of Jordan would do it too,” Trump added.
However, Egyptian state-linked media quickly reported that such a call never happened, citing a senior government source, after Israeli media, including the Jerusalem Post and Ynet, reported that the two presidents spoke by phone and that Sissi did not object to the idea.
He insisted for the third time on Thursday that Egypt and Jordan would accept displaced Palestinians. His comments came a day after Egyptian President Jordan’s King rejected any forced displacement.
“They will do it,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office when asked for his response to the Egyptian and Jordanian refusal, and whether he would consider imposing tariffs on either country to push them.
“They’re going to do it. We do a lot for them, and they’re going to do it.”
Condemnations
Palestine, Egypt, and Jordan all strongly slammed Trump’s remarks immediately.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) said the plan “constitutes a blatant violation of the red lines we have consistently warned against”. “We emphasise that the Palestinian people will never abandon their land or their holy sites, and we will not allow the repetition of the catastrophes (Nakba) of 1948 and 1967. Our people will remain steadfast and will not leave their homeland,” it said.
Hamas said the US administration must abandon such proposals that align with Israeli “schemes” and conflict with the rights of the Palestinian people, who have already been resisting “the most heinous acts of genocide” and displacement since Israel launched its war on Gaza in October 2023.
“Our principles are clear, and Jordan’s steadfast position to uphold the Palestinians’ presence on their land remains unchanged and will never change,” Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told a joint press conference in Amman.
“The solution to the Palestinian issue lies in Palestine; Jordan is for Jordanians and Palestine is for Palestinians,” he added.
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry also affirmed “Egypt’s continued support for the resilience of the Palestinian people on their land and their commitment to their legitimate rights in their homeland, in accordance with international law and international humanitarian law.”
Egypt “cannot be part of any solution involving the transfer of Palestinians into the Sinai,” the Egyptian Embassy in Washington said, citing an opinion piece published by Ambassador Motaz Zahran on the US website The Hill in October 2023.
On Wednesday, Egypt’s Sissi said in his first public response to Trump’s comments that displacing “the Palestinian people from their land is an injustice that we cannot take part in.”
Jordan’s King Abdullah II separately stressed his country’s “firm position on the need to keep the Palestinians on their land.”
White House envoy Steve Witkoff recently visited Gaza, marking the first US visit to the region in 15 years. In an interview with Axios, Witkoff painted a grim picture of the destruction in Gaza, describing the area as “uninhabitable” following the Israeli genocide and estimating that rebuilding could take 10 to 15 years.