Arab nations band together against Trump's Gaza plan

Arab nations unite against Trump’s Gaza relocation plan, reject Palestinian displacement.

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CAIRO:

Arab nations have mounted a fierce pushback against US President Donald Trump's plan to relocate Palestinians from Gaza to Egypt and Jordan, banding together in a rare united front.

Across the region, even Washington's closest friends have recoiled at the proposal, with countries including Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar rallying to try and block it.

Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit on Wednesday said the prospect of Palestinian displacement from Gaza and the West Bank — which he warned would follow -— "is unacceptable for the Arab world, which has fought this idea for 100 years".

"We Arabs are not about to capitulate in any way now," he said at the World Governments Summit in Dubai.

Over the past two weeks, Trump has insisted on his proposal to "just clean out" Gaza, which he says the United States would control, while the enclave's 2.4 million inhabitants would be displaced to Egypt and Jordan.

In the face of staunch opposition, he suggested he could halt aid to Cairo and Amman if they refused.

But again on Wednesday, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Jordan's King Abdullah II stressed the "unity" of their countries' positions on Gaza, calling for immediate reconstruction "without displacing the Palestinian people from their land".

Even those who have drawn closer to Israel in recent years —- including Saudi Arabia, which seemed close to normalising relations before the outbreak of the Gaza war —- have refused to budge.

"Arab states cannot be seen as siding with the United States and Israel and supporting a policy of ethnically cleansing Palestinians from Gaza," said Anna Jacobs of the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.

"The Palestinian issue is too sensitive and too important for Arab publics," she told AFP. AFP