On Saturday, President Trump suggested the idea of “cleaning out” Palestinians from Gaza and sending them to Egypt and Jordan, raising fears that the US may support the ethnic cleansing of the territory.
The president told reporters on Air Force One that moving Palestinians to the two Arab states could be either “temporary” or “long-term.” He said he discussed the idea with Jordan’s King Abdullah in a call they held on Saturday.
“I said to him, ‘I’d love you take on more,’ because I’m looking at the whole Gaza Strip right now and it’s a mess. It’s a real mess,” Trump said, adding that he planned to discuss the idea with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi on Sunday.
“You’re talking about a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing,” Trump said. “It’s literally a demolition site. Almost everything is demolished, and people are dying there, so 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.”
Jordan, which has a large population of Palestinian refugees, most of whom have citizenship, rejected Trump’s idea in comments on Sunday. “Our principles are clear, and Jordan’s steadfast position to uphold the Palestinians’ presence on their land remains unchanged and will never change,” Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told reporters.
Egypt and the Arab League later put out statements rejecting Trump’s idea. “The forced displacement and eviction of people from their land can only be called ethnic cleansing,” the Arab League said.
Hamas also responded to Trump’s comments, calling on the administration to “abandon these proposals, which align with Israeli plans and clash with the rights and free will of our people” and “work to enable the Palestinian people to achieve their freedom and establish their independent state with Jerusalem as its capital.”
Media reports have said the Trump administration has discussed the idea of “temporarily” locating Palestinians in Gaza during reconstruction. According to NBC News, the administration has discussed sending them to Indonesia, although Jakarta said it was unaware of such plans.
Many elements of the Israeli government want ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the establishment of Jewish settlements in the territory. Israeli politician Itamar Ben Gvir, leader of the Jewish Power party, who just resigned from the government over the ceasefire deal, welcomed Trump’s comments. Ben Gvir frames his desire for ethnic cleansing as “voluntary migration.”
Ben Gvir wrote on X: “Congratulations to US President Trump on the initiative to transfer residents from Gaza to Jordan and Egypt. 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!”
Some members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party are also openly in favor of ethnic cleansing in Gaza. May Golan, a Likud member who serves as the minister for Social Equality and the Advancement of the Status of Women, recently called for a second “Nakba” in Gaza, referring to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948 during the establishment of the modern state of Israel.
In October 2023, a document prepared by Israel’s Intelligence Ministry that was leaked to the media said the best post-war scenario for Israel would be the expulsion of all Palestinians living in Gaza.
