Trump says he wants Egypt and Jordan to take Palestinians from Gaza

US President Donald Trump has said he wants Egypt and Jordan to evacuate Palestinians from Gaza, which he has described as a “demolition site”.

In a phone call this weekend, Mr Trump said he had told Jordan’s King Abdullah: “I would like you to take more charge, because I’m looking at the entire Gaza Strip right now and it’s a mess, It’s a real mess.” He said he planned to make a similar request to Egypt’s president on Sunday.

The move “could be temporary” or “could be long-term,” he said.

Hamas has vowed to oppose any such action, and the comments are likely to anger Palestinians in Gaza, who see the territory as their ancestral home.

“Our Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip endured 15 months of death and destruction without leaving their land. Therefore, they will not accept any proposals or solutions, even if they appear to be well-intentioned, under the title of reconstruction, as That the US has announced President Trump’s proposal, Hamas political bureau member Bassem Naim told the BBC.

He said, “Just as our people have thwarted all plans for displacement and alternative homelands for decades, they will thwart such projects too.”

The 15-month war with Israel has displaced most of Gaza’s two million residents, destroying much of Gaza’s infrastructure.

The United Nations previously estimated that 60% of the structures in Gaza had been damaged or destroyed, and that reconstruction could take decades.

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

He said, “You’re probably talking about a million and a half people and we’ll clean that whole thing up.”

“Almost everything has collapsed and people are dying there. So I want to join with some Arab countries and build housing in a different place, where maybe they can live in peace for a change.”

Mr Trump did not provide further details about the proposal, and the topic was not mentioned in the official White House call.

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

“We are the ones who decide our destiny and what we want. This land is ours and has been the property of our ancestors throughout history. We will leave it with nothing but corpses.”

For decades, US foreign policy has been committed to the creation of a Palestinian state, of which Gaza is a key part. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects it,

The US has previously said it opposes any forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza or the occupied West Bank The then Secretary of State Antony Blinken had said last year: “They cannot be pressured to leave Gaza, nor should they be pressured.”

According to the United Nations, more than two million Palestinian refugees, most of whom have been granted citizenship, live in Jordan. 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.

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

In October 2023, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi He said he rejects any forced displacement of Palestinians in the Sinai Peninsula, and the only solution was an independent state for the Palestinians.

Some people on Israel’s far right want to return to Gaza And establish settlements there. Israel ordered a unilateral withdrawal in 2005, leading to the destruction of 21 settlements and the evacuation of approximately 9,000 residents by the military.

Far-right former National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said he appreciated Mr Trump “for the initiative to transfer residents from Gaza to Jordan and Egypt”.

“One of our demands from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to promote voluntary migration,” he wrote on Twitter.

Mr Trump’s comments came as Displaced people were delayed in returning to their homes in northern Gaza after Israel accused Hamas of violating the terms of the ceasefire agreement.

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

In separate comments on Air Force One, Mr. Trump said he had finished the former president Joe Biden bans supply of 2,000 pound bombs to Israel,

“They paid for them and they’ve been waiting for them for a long time,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One.

The US is by far the largest supplier of arms to Israel, helping 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 shipments to Israel due to the level of destruction caused by US weapons in the region.