Palestinians refuse to relocate to any other country

PA, Hamas and Jordan reject Trump's idea of cleaning out Gaza

Listen to article

GAZA CITY:

Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad, as well as Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas reacted defiantly on Sunday to US President Donald Trump's idea of a forced displacement of Gazans to Egypt and Jordan to clean out Gaza, stressing that the Palestinian people would never abandon their homeland.

As the Gaza ceasefire entered its second week after 15 months of war, Trump said Gaza had become a "demolition site", adding that he had spoken to Jordan's King Abdullah about moving the Palestinians out of the territory and to Egypt and Jordan.

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said that "our rejection of the displacement of Palestinians is firm and will not change. Jordan is for Jordanians and Palestine is for Palestinians." Egypt has previously warned against any "forced displacement" of Palestinians from Gaza into its Sinai desert.

President Abbas condemned "any projects" to relocate the people of Gaza outside the territory. Without naming the US leader, Abbas "expressed strong rejection and condemnation of any projects aimed at displacing our people from the Gaza Strip".

A statement from his office said that the Palestinian people "will not abandon their land" and the holy sites. "We will not allow the repetition of the catastrophes that befell our people in 1948 and 1967," the statement added.

The former is known to Palestinians as the Nakba, or 'catastrophe', when hundreds of thousands were displaced during the war that coincided with Israel's creation. During the 1967 war, known as the Naksa, or 'setback', Israel captured Gaza and the West Bank and displaced hundreds of thousands more.

Abbas also rejected "any policy that undermines the unity of the Palestinian land in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including east Jerusalem". He called on Trump to "continue his efforts to support" the ceasefire in Gaza that began on January 19.

Speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump said that almost everything was demolished in Gaza and the people were dying there. He added that moving Gaza's inhabitants could be "temporarily or could be long term".

The US president said he wanted the Gazans to be relocated to Egypt and Jordan. "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," he said.

"You're talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing. You know, over the centuries it's had many, many conflicts that site. And I don't know, something has to happen," the US president told reporters.

Most Gazans are Palestinian refugees or their descendants. For them, any attempt to move them from Gaza would evoke dark memories of 'Nakba'. Jordan is already home to around 2.3 million registered Palestinian refugees, according to the United Nations.

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".

Islamic Jihad called the idea "deplorable" because it encouraged "war crimes and crimes against humanity by forcing our people to leave their land". On the other hand, far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Trump's suggestion "is a great idea".

Earlier this month, Qatar and the US brokered a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas after 15 months of war. Heaving a sigh of relief from a relentless Israeli genocide campaign, the Gazans sought to return to their flattened homes after the ceasefire began on previous Sunday.

But a dispute linked to the latest hostage-prisoner swap under the truce deal led to vast crowds of Palestinians jamming a coastal road after they were blocked from returning to the territory's north. The swap saw four Israeli women soldiers, and 200 Palestinian prisoners released on Saturday.

However, Israel announced on Saturday that it would prevent Palestinians' passage until the release of Arbel Yehud, a civilian woman hostage who Netanyahu's office said "was supposed to be released". Israel said Hamas had committed truce violation.

Ismail al-Thawabtah, director general of the government media office in Gaza, also said there were tens of thousands waiting at the junction. He put the total number of Gazans wanting to return to the north at "between 615,000 and 650,000".