Palestinians and Arab states reject Trump's Gaza takeover proposal

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Reuters Displaced Palestinians from the Mohammed household  beryllium   connected  the rubble of destroyed buildings successful  the Gaza Strip (28 January 2025)Reuters

Most of Gaza's 2.1 cardinal colonisation has been displaced by the 15-month warfare betwixt Israel and Hamas

The Palestinian president has said helium powerfully rejects President Donald Trump's connection for the US to instrumentality implicit Gaza and permanently resettle the 2.1 cardinal Palestinians surviving there.

"We volition not let the rights of our people... to beryllium infringed on," Mahmoud Abbas stressed, informing that Gaza was "an integral portion of the State of Palestine" and forced displacement would beryllium a superior usurpation of planetary law.

Hamas, whose 15-month warfare with Israel has caused wide devastation, said Trump's program would "put lipid connected the fire" successful the region.

The thought was besides rejected by determination powers including Jordan and Egypt, which the US president wants to instrumentality successful galore of the displaced Gazans.

Saudi Arabia said Palestinians would "not move" from their onshore and it would not normalise ties with Israel without the constitution of a Palestinian state.

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Trump's connection could "change history" and was "worth paying attraction to".

Trump's connection comes 2 weeks aft the commencement of a fragile ceasefire successful Gaza, during which Hamas has released immoderate Israeli hostages it is holding successful speech for Palestinian prisoners successful Israeli jails.

The Israeli subject launched a run to destruct Hamas successful effect to an unprecedented cross-border onslaught connected 7 October 2023, successful which astir 1,200 radical were killed and 251 were taken hostage.

More than 47,540 radical person been killed and 111,600 injured successful Gaza since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run wellness ministry.

Most of Gaza's colonisation has besides been displaced aggregate times, astir 70% of buildings are estimated to beryllium damaged oregon destroyed, the healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene systems person collapsed, and determination are shortages of food, fuel, medicine and shelter.

Watch: What President Trump has said astir Gaza

President Trump's archetypal large remarks connected Middle East argumentation shattered decades of US reasoning connected the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"The US volition instrumentality implicit the Gaza Strip, and we volition bash a occupation with it too," helium told reporters astatine the White House connected Tuesday night, alongside the visiting Israeli premier minister.

"We'll ain it and beryllium liable for dismantling each of the unsafe unexploded bombs and different weapons connected the site, level the site, and get escaped of the destroyed buildings."

Trump said Palestinians surviving successful Gaza would person to beryllium relocated to execute his imaginativeness of creating "the Riviera of the Middle East", and that they would beryllium housed successful Jordan, Egypt and different countries.

When asked whether the refugees would yet beryllium allowed to return, helium said that "the world's people" would unrecorded successful Gaza, earlier adding "also Palestinians".

Trump besides brushed speech erstwhile objections from Jordan and Egypt's leaders to taking successful refugees, insisting that they would yet "open their hearts and volition springiness america the benignant of onshore that we request to get this done".

Netanyahu said: "This is the benignant of reasoning that volition reshape the Middle East and bring peace."

A unnamed elder Israeli authoritative was besides quoted arsenic saying that Trump's ideas surpassed each his "expectations and dreams".

Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said the connection was "the existent reply to 7 October" and pledged to "definitively bury... the unsafe thought of a Palestinian state".

However, the Palestinian enactment condemned the program successful a connection issued connected Wednesday.

"These calls correspond a superior usurpation of planetary law," President Abbas said, adding that "peace and stableness volition not beryllium achieved successful the portion without the constitution of a Palestinian state".

Abbas leads Hamas rivals Fatah and governs parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

He declared that Palestinians would not "give up their land, rights, and ineffable sites" and that "the Gaza Strip is an integral portion of the onshore of the State of Palestine, on with the West Bank and East Jerusalem".

The caput of the Palestinian ngo to the UK, Husam Zomlot, told the BBC: "It's a telephone for taste cleansing, for the forced displacement and expulsion of a radical from their autochthonal land. It is immoral, it is illegal, and it is dangerous."

Hamas - which is proscribed arsenic a violent organisation by Israel, the US, the UK and different countries - said successful a connection that Trump was "aiming for the United States to inhabit the Gaza Strip".

It warned that his connection was "aggressive to our radical and cause, won't service stableness successful the portion and volition lone enactment lipid connected the fire".

Palestinians successful Gaza besides said the program was wholly retired of the question.

"We person endured astir a twelvemonth and a fractional of bombings and destruction, yet we stay successful Gaza," 1 antheral told BBC Arabic.

"We would alternatively dice successful Gaza than permission it. We volition enactment present until we rebuild it. Trump tin bash arsenic helium pleases, but we firmly cull his decisions."

Watch: 'We volition not wantonness our land' - Palestinians respond to Trump's Gaza comments

The UN quality rights bureau warned that immoderate forcible transportation in, oregon deportation of, radical from occupied territory was strictly prohibited nether planetary law.

Palestinians besides fearfulness a repetition of the "Nakba", oregon "catastrophe", erstwhile hundreds of thousands fled oregon were driven from their homes earlier and during the warfare that followed the instauration of the State of Israel successful 1948.

Many of those refugees ended up successful Gaza, wherever they and their descendants marque up 3 quarters of the population. Another 900,000 registered refugees unrecorded successful the West Bank, which Israel occupied successful the 1967 Middle East warfare on with Gaza, portion 3.4 cardinal others unrecorded successful Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, according to the UN.

Israel unilaterally withdrew its troops and settlers from Gaza successful 2005, though it retained power of its shared border, airspace and shoreline, giving it effectual power of the question of radical and goods. The UN inactive regards Gaza arsenic Israeli-occupied territory due to the fact that of the level of power Israel has.

Saudi Arabia's overseas ministry said the kingdom "unequivocally rejected" Trump's connection for post-war Gaza and reiterated that it would proceed its efforts to found an autarkic Palestinian authorities and "not found diplomatic relations with Israel without that".

"Achieving lasting and conscionable bid is intolerable without the Palestinian radical obtaining their morganatic rights," it added.

Following talks successful Cairo, Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said helium had agreed with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa connected "the value of moving guardant with aboriginal betterment projects... without the Palestinians leaving the Gaza Strip, particularly with their committedness to their onshore and refusal to permission it".

During a aboriginal gathering successful Amman with President Abbas, Jordan's King Abdullah II expressed "rejection of immoderate attempts to annex onshore oregon displace Palestinians successful Gaza and the West Bank" and called "for supporting the steadfastness of Palestinians connected their lands", according to the royal court.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said the relocation of Palestinians from Gaza successful immoderate signifier was "unacceptable", adding: "It is absurd to adjacent see it."

Western governments besides expressed alarm astir immoderate forced displacement.

France's overseas ministry said it would "constitute a superior usurpation of planetary law, an onslaught connected the morganatic aspirations of the Palestinians, but besides a large obstacle to the two-state solution and a large destabilising origin for our adjacent partners Egypt and Jordan, arsenic good arsenic for the full region".

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said Palestinians "must beryllium allowed home".

"They indispensable beryllium allowed to rebuild, and we should beryllium with them successful that rebuild connected the mode to a two-state solution," helium told Parliament.

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