Palestinians slam Trump’s idea to ‘clean out’ Gaza
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Israel said it would block the return of displaced Palestinians to their homes in northern Gaza until civilian hostage Arbel Yehud is released.
PHOTO: AFP
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GAZA CITY - Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and armed group Hamas vowed on Jan 26 to defy proposals for the forced displacement of Gazans, after US President Donald Trump floated a plan to “clean out” the war-battered territory.
Meanwhile, Palestinian sources said a dispute linked to hostage-prisoner swops under the Israel-Hamas truce deal may be nearing a solution that could allow vast crowds of Palestinians jamming a coastal road to return to northern Gaza.
The latest swop saw four Israeli women hostages, all of whom are soldiers, and 200 prisoners, nearly all Palestinian, released on Jan 25 – the second such exchange during the fragile truce entering its second week.
After 15 months of war, Mr Trump said Gaza had become a “demolition site”, adding that he had spoken to Jordan’s King Abdullah II about moving Palestinians out of the territory.
“I’d like Egypt to take people. And I’d like Jordan to take people,” Mr Trump told reporters.
Mr Abbas, who is based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, “expressed strong rejection and condemnation of any projects” aimed at displacing Palestinians from Gaza, his office said.
The Palestinian people “will not abandon their land and holy sites”, it added.
Mr Basem Naim, a member of Hamas’ political bureau, told AFP that Palestinians would “foil such projects”, as they have done to similar plans “for displacement and alternative homelands over the decades”.
Islamic Jihad, which has fought alongside Hamas in Gaza, called Mr Trump’s idea “deplorable”.
For Palestinians, any attempt to move them from Gaza would evoke dark memories of what the Arab world calls the “Nakba”, or catastrophe – the mass displacement of Palestinians during Israel’s creation in 1948.
“We say to Trump and the whole world: We will not leave Palestine or Gaza, no matter what happens,” said displaced Gaza resident Rashad al-Naji.
Firm rejection
Mr Trump told reporters on Jan 25 aboard Air Force One: “You’re talking about probably a million and half people, and we just clean out that whole thing.”
Moving Gaza’s roughly 2.4 million inhabitants could be done “temporarily or could be long term”, he said.
Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich – who opposed the truce deal and has voiced support for re-establishing Israeli settlements in Gaza – called Trump’s suggestion “a great idea”.
The Arab League rejected the idea, warning against “attempts to uproot the Palestinian people from their land”.
“The forced displacement and eviction of people from their land can only be called ethnic cleansing,” the league said in a statement.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said: “Our rejection of the displacement of Palestinians is firm and will not change. Jordan is for Jordanians and Palestine is for Palestinians.”
Egypt’s Foreign Ministry said it rejected any infringement of Palestinians’ “inalienable rights”.
Almost all Gazans have been displaced by the war that began after Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on Oct 7, 2023.
In Gaza, cars and carts loaded with belongings jammed a road near the Netzarim Corridor that Israel has blocked, preventing the expected return of hundreds of thousands of people to northern Gaza.
Israel said it would prevent Palestinians’ passage until the release of Ms Arbel Yehud, a civilian hostage
Ms Arbel Yehud, an Israeli hostage held by militant group Hamas.
PHOTO: BRING THEM HOME NOW
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said that by not releasing her and not providing a “detailed list of all hostages’ statuses”, Hamas had committed truce violations.
Hamas said blocking Palestinians’ return to the north also amounted to a truce violation, adding that it had provided “all the necessary guarantees” for Ms Yehud’s release.
Two Palestinian sources later told AFP that Ms Yehud would be handed over within days.
“The crisis has been resolved,” said one Palestinian source familiar with the issue.
Israel has yet to comment.
Dire humanitarian situation
During the first phase of the Gaza truce, 33 hostages are set to be freed in staggered releases over six weeks in exchange for around 1,900 Palestinians held in Israeli jails.
Mr Dani Miran, whose hostage son Omri is not slated for release during the first phase, demonstrated outside Mr Netanyahu’s office in Jerusalem on Jan 26.
“We want the agreement to continue and for them to bring our children back as quickly as possible – and all at once,” he said.
The truce has brought a surge of food, fuel, medicines and other aid into rubble-strewn Gaza, but the UN says “the humanitarian situation remains dire”.
Of the 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s Oct 7, 2023 attack,
The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 47,306 people in Gaza, the majority civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s Health Ministry that the UN considers reliable.
Israel has also reached a ceasefire with Hamas ally Hezbollah in Lebanon. Although the deal stipulated that Israeli forces must withdraw by Jan 26, that has not happened.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said Israeli troops had killed nearly two dozen people as residents tried to return to their homes near the border.
The Israeli army said soldiers “fired warning shots” against “suspects”. AFP
