Several prominent Israelis, including veteran journalists and commentators, have mocked US President Donald Trump’s proposal to “clean out” Gaza and forcibly transfer the Palestinian people to Jordan and Egypt.
On Saturday, less than a week after a ceasefire took hold in Gaza, ending 15 months of war, Trump described the Palestinian enclave as a “demolition site” and said it would be better if “we just clean out that whole thing”.
“I would like Egypt to take people,” Trump said. “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’.”
Trump said he thanked Jordan for having successfully accepted Palestinian refugees and that he told the king, “I would love for you to take on more, ‘cause I am looking at the whole Gaza Strip right now, and it’s a mess. It’s a real mess.”
He added that the move “could be temporary” or “could be long-term”.
There was immediate condemnation from the Palestinians, who, along with Jordan and Egypt, rejected the idea over fears that Israel would never allow the Palestinians to return to Gaza if they were forced to leave.
Haaretz, Israel’s newspaper of record, issued a scathing attack on Trump’s policy proposal on Monday, with the editorial board stating the strip was the “home” of more than two million Palestinians as it ridiculed suggestions that they be sent to other Arab nations alog with Indonesia.
“At this rate Trump is likely to propose that Gazans be launched ‘voluntarily’ into space and settle Mars, in the spirit of his promise in his inauguration speech: ‘And we will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars’,” the editorial board wrote.
“Why not the Palestinian flag too? It’s possible his partner Elon Musk is already working on it.”
Chaim Levinson, a columnist at Haaretz, wrote: “I’m sorry, but I must disappoint you. After checking with a number of officials, both in Israel and in the relevant countries – along with diplomats involved in the negotiations – it seems this is the vision of an experienced real estate tycoon, and no such concrete plan of action exists.
“The people residing in the Gaza Strip are considered lepers amongst their friends from other Islamic nations. Everyone is talking about their suffering, from the emir of Qatar to the president of Egypt, who are willing to send them money – but accepting people? There’s a limit, and they will determinedly keep to it.”
Meanwhile, Zvi Bar’el, a columnist at Haaretz, said it was inconceivable that Jordan would accept more Palestinians, especially after King Abdullah’s September address at the UN General Assembly, where he said the Hashemite Kingdom would never become “an alternative homeland” for Palestinians.
“For decades, Jordan was keeping a suspicious, concerned eye on Israeli discourse about the establishment of an alternative Palestinian homeland and each time required all-clear statements from Israeli leaders to indicate that Israel does not intend to dissolve the kingdom’s demographic identity,” Bar’el said.
“When, during the war in Gaza, the suggestion was again made that hundreds of thousands of Gazans be deported to Egypt and other countries, Jordan and Egypt received Israeli assurances that there is no intention to start a transfer of Palestinians from Gaza,” he added.
Middle East Eye reported on Monday that any plan to “clean out Gaza” would be a violation of international law. Ardi Imseis, professor of international law at Queen’s University and a former UN official, said that “President Trump’s desire to ‘relocate’ Palestinians en masse from the occupied Gaza Strip is as illegal as it is wishful.”
“Under international humanitarian law and international criminal law, individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the occupying power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive,” he told MEE.
Remarks cause confusion
Jordan is already home to more than two million Palestinian refugees, and Egypt, which borders Gaza, has warned of the security implications of moving large numbers of Palestinians to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
Today, there are 5.8 million registered Palestinian refugees living in dozens of camps in the occupied West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.
Some 80 percent of the Gaza population are refugees or descendants of refugees displaced since the Nakba of 1948, when Israel captured 78 percent of historic Palestine.
In the US, even some Republicans loyal to Trump struggled to comprehend the president’s remarks.
“I really don’t know,” Senator Lindsey Graham told CNN when asked what the president meant by the “clean out” remark.
“The idea that all the Palestinians are going to leave and go somewhere else, I don’t see that to be overly practical,” said Graham, adding that Trump should keep talking to regional leaders, including Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Emirati officials.
Germany’s government also rejected the idea of the mass displacement of Palestinians on Monday, with a spokesperson for the foreign ministry telling reporters in Berlin that the country shared the view of “the European Union, our Arab partners, the United Nations… that the Palestinian population must not be expelled from Gaza and Gaza must not be permanently occupied or recolonised by Israel.”
Earlier on Monday, tens of thousands of Palestinians streamed into northern Gaza, the enclave’s most heavily destroyed area, with massive crowds defiantly declaring they would not be expelled from their lands.
Sami Saleh, who was displaced several times, told MEE that despite facing an “extremely difficult” period of displacement over the past year, he was excited to be back home.
“I won’t hide these feelings, and I am not exaggerating when I say this: I wanted to fly to the north… these feelings have been there from the start. Despite all the pain and hardship, I had to make my way back to the north no matter what, even if I had to walk there barefoot,” he said.
A fragile ceasefire agreement has been in place since 19 January, and on Saturday, Israel and Hamas completed their second captives-for-prisoners exchange. Hamas released four Israeli female soldiers in exchange for 200 Palestinian prisoners.
Trump’s administration has pledged “unwavering support” for Israel but has not yet outlined a broader Middle East strategy.
On Saturday, the US president confirmed that he had directed the Pentagon to approve the delivery of 2,000lb (907kg) bombs to Israel, a shipment previously halted by former President Joe Biden.
