Jan. 26 (UPI) — President Donald Trump said he wants “clean out” the Gaza Strip and have Egypt and Jordan to take in millions of displaced Palestinians.
During a phone call with Jordan’s King Abdullah, Trump said Saturday: “I’d love you to take on more, because I’m looking at the whole Gaza Strip right now and it’s a mess, it’s a real mess.”
He said he planned to speak to Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi on Sunday about the situation. In October, Egypt’sal-Sisi said he rejected any forced displacement of Palestinians into the Sinai peninsula, and instead wants an independent state for Palestinians.
Jordanian and Egyptian governments haven’t respond to the idea.
Trump made his remarks to reporters aboard Air Force One flying from Las Vegas to Miami.
Most of Gaza’s two million residents have been displaced since Israel’s war with Hamas 15 months ago. Some have fled to Egypt.
Israel has paused the movement of Palestinians in northern Gaza after the government accused Hamas of breaching a cease-fire agreement.
“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 told reporters.
“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.'”
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hasn’t commented on Trump’s suggestion.
Former Israeli national security minister ItamarBen-Gvir congratulated Trump in a post on X.
“One of our demands from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to encourage voluntary immigration, and when the president of the world’s largest power, Trump, himself raises the idea, it would be wise for the Israeli government to implement it – encourage immigration now!,” the far right Ben-Gvir wrote on X in Hebrew.
And Finance Minister Smotrich said finding new homes for Gaza residents was “wonderful.” He told Israeli broadcaster Channel 12 on Sunday that “only out-of-the-box thinking and new solutions will bring peace and security.”
Hamas opposes the plan.
“The people of Gaza had endured death in order not to leave the homeland and will not leave it for any other reasons,” Sami Abu Zuhri, a senior Hamas spokesperson, said,
“Implementing the agreement is sufficient to solve the problems of the Gaza Strip.”
Abu Yahya Rashid, a man displaced in the southern city of Khan Younis, told the BBC:
“We are the ones who decide our fate and what we want. This land is ours and the property of our ancestors throughout history. We will not leave it except as corpses.”
Also Saturday, Trump confirmed he had instructed the U.S. military to resume shipments of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel, which were paused under President Joe Biden because of concerns about civilian casualties. Trump said he made the decision “because they bought them.”
Netanyahu said in a video message posted Sunday on X: “Thank you President Trump for keeping your promise to give Israel the tools it needs to defend itself, to confront our common enemies and to secure a future of peace and prosperity.”
On Oct. 7, 2023, Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked Israel in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage. Israel launched an air and land assault on Gaza, killing more than 47,000 people, most of them civilians, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry officials.
