Trump wants Egypt and Jordan to accept Palestinians

US President Donald Trump has said he wants Egypt and Jordan to accept Palestinians from Gaza, which he described as a “place of destruction”.

Trump said he told Jordan’s King Abdullah: “I would love for you to take on more because I’m looking at the whole Gaza Strip right now and it’s a mess.”

“You’re talking about probably a million and a half people, and we’re just clearing it all out,” he said, adding that the relocation “could be temporary” or “could be long-term.” The US president said he plans to make a similar request to Egypt’s president on Sunday.

Hamas has vowed to oppose any such action and the comments are likely to anger Palestinians in Gaza, who call it their home.

“Our Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip have suffered death and destruction for 15 months…without leaving their land. Therefore, they will not accept any proposals or solutions, even if they look like good intentions under the title of restoration, as announced by the US President Trump’s proposals,” Bassem Naim, a member of the Hamas political bureau, told the BBC.

“Our people, just as they have thwarted all plans for displacement and an alternative homeland over the decades, will also thwart such projects,” he added.

Most of Gaza’s two million residents were displaced during the 15 months of war with Israel that destroyed much of Gaza’s infrastructure.

The United Nations previously estimated that 60 percent of Gaza’s structures were damaged or destroyed and could take decades to rebuild.

Trump made his comments while speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One.

“Almost everything has been demolished and people are dying there.

“So I’d rather contact some of the Arab nations and build housing elsewhere where maybe they can live in peace for a change.”

Trump did not elaborate on the proposal, and the topic was not mentioned in an official White House statement read from the call.

Asked about Trump’s comments, Abu Yahya Rashid, a displaced man in the southern city of Khan Younis, said:

“We are the ones who decide our destiny and what we want. This land is ours and the property of our ancestors throughout history. We will not leave it except as corpses.”

Decades of US foreign policy have been committed to the creation of a Palestinian state, with Gaza as a key part. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects this.

The US has previously said it opposes any forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza or the occupied West Bank, with then-Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said last year: “They cannot, must not be pressured to leave Gaza.”

More than two million Palestinian refugees, most of whom have been granted citizenship, live in Jordan, according to the United Nations. They are descendants of some of the approximately 750,000 Palestinians who fled or were forced from their homes in the conflicts surrounding Israel’s formation in 1948.

Thousands of Palestinians have fled to Egypt since the start of the war with Israel, but are not recognized as refugees there.

In October 2023 Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said it rejects any forced displacement of Palestinians in the Sinai Peninsula and that the only solution is an independent state for the Palestinians.

Some on Israel’s far right want to return to Gaza and founded settlements there. Israel ordered a unilateral withdrawal in 2005, with 21 settlements dismantled and some 9,000 settlers evacuated by the army.

Far-right former national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said he congratulated Trump “for the initiative to transfer residents from Gaza to Jordan and Egypt.”

“One of our requests to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to encourage voluntary emigration,” he wrote to X.

Trump’s comments were like displaced people were delayed in returning to their homes in northern Gaza after Israel accused Hamas of violating the terms of the cease-fire agreement.

“There is nothing there – no life, everything is destroyed. But still to return to your land, to your home is a great joy,” one man who was waiting tensely told the BBC.

In separate comments on Air Force One, Trump said he was done with the former president Joe Biden’s arrest over the delivery of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel.

“They paid them and they waited a long time,” he told reporters on Air Force One.

The US is Israel’s largest arms supplier, having helped it build one of the most technologically sophisticated armies in the world.

But the war in Gaza has led to renewed calls for the US to reduce or end arms supplies to Israel, due to the level of destruction caused by US weapons in the territory.