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GAZA: People push a car loaded with personal belongings along Salah al-Din road in Nuseirat as displaced Palestinians make their way to the northern part of the Gaza Strip on Jan 28, 2025. - AFP
GAZA: People push a car loaded with personal belongings along Salah al-Din road in Nuseirat as displaced Palestinians make their way to the northern part of the Gaza Strip on Jan 28, 2025. - AFP

Trump repeats call to expel Gazans

Khamenei: Zionist entity on ‘its knees’ • Iran FM: Send Zionists to Greenland

WASHINGTON/GAZA: An idea floated by US President Donald Trump to move Gazans to Egypt or Jordan faced a renewed backlash Tuesday as hundreds of thousands of Gazans displaced by the Zionist-Hamas war returned to their devastated neighborhoods. A fragile ceasefire and hostage release deal took effect earlier this month, intended to end more than 15 months of war.

After the ceasefire came into force, Trump touted a plan to “clean out” the Gaza Strip, reiterating the idea on Monday as he called for Palestinians to move to “safer” locations such as Egypt or Jordan. The US president, who has repeatedly claimed credit for sealing the truce deal after months of fruitless negotiations, also said he would meet Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington “very soon”.

Jordan, which has a tumultuous history with Palestinian movements, on Tuesday renewed its rejection of Trump’s proposal. “We emphasize that Jordan’s national security dictates that the Palestinians must remain on their land and that the Palestinian people must not be subjected to any kind of forced displacement whatsoever,” Jordanian government spokesman Mohammad Momani said.

Qatar, which played a leading role in the truce mediation, on Tuesday said that it often did not see “eye to eye” with its allies, including the United States. “Our position has always been clear to the necessity of the Palestinian people receiving their rights, and that the two-state solution is the only path forward,” Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al-Ansari said.

Following reports that Trump had spoken with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi at the weekend, Cairo said there had been no such phone call. “A senior official source denied what some media outlets reported about a phone call between the Egyptian and American presidents,” Egypt’s state information service said.

On Monday, Trump reportedly said the pair had spoken, saying of Sisi: “I wish he would take some (Palestinians).” After Trump first floated the idea, Egypt rejected the forced displacement of Gazans, expressing its “continued support for the steadfastness of the Palestinian people on their land”.

France, another US ally, on Tuesday said any forced displacement of Gazans would be “unacceptable”. It would also be a “destabilization factor (for) our close allies Egypt and Jordan”, a French foreign ministry spokesman said. Moving Gaza’s 2.4 million people could be done “temporarily or could be long term”, Trump said on Saturday. Zionist far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said he was working with the prime minister “to prepare an operational plan to ensure that President Trump’s vision is realized”. Smotrich, who opposed the ceasefire deal, did not provide any details on the purported plan.

For Palestinians, any attempts to force them from Gaza would evoke dark memories of 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 Gazan Rashad Al-Naji.

Almost all of the Gaza Strip’s inhabitants were displaced at least once by the war that has leveled much of the Palestinian territory. On Monday, after Hamas and the Zionist entity agreed over the release of six hostages this week, “more than 300,000 displaced” Gazans were able to return to the north, according to the Hamas government media office.

“I’m happy to be back at my home,” said Saif Al-Din Qazaat, who returned to northern Gaza but had to sleep in a tent next to the ruins of his destroyed house. “I kept a fire burning all night near the kids to keep them warm... (they) slept peacefully despite the cold, but we don’t have enough blankets,” the 41-year-old told AFP. The Zionist offensive has killed at least 47,317 people in Gaza, the majority civilians.

Meanwhile, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Tuesday that Gaza had brought the Zionist entity “to its knees”, in a reference to the recent ceasefire in the Palestinian territory. “The small, limited Gaza brought the Zionist regime, armed to the teeth and fully supported by America, to its knees,” Khamenei said during a meeting with officials in Tehran.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi meanwhile appeared to mock Trump’s plan to relocate Palestinians, saying instead Zionists should be sent to Greenland to resolve the issue. “Instead of Palestinians, try to expel (Zionists), take them to Greenland, killing two birds with one stone,” he said, in an interview with Sky News that was posted on his official Telegram channel. “They can resolve the problem of Greenland and the (Zionists), it would be a good place for them,” he added.

The US president has also for years touted a purported plan to take over the autonomous Danish territory of Greenland, telling reporters on Saturday he believed the United States would “get Greenland”. Earlier on Tuesday, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, Esmaeil Baqaei, had also criticized the idea of moving Palestinians out of Gaza.

“Political coercion and demographic manipulations will not be able to force the Palestinians to migrate,” Baqaei said in a post on X, adding that Gaza is the Palestinians’ “homeland and they’ve paid (an) extremely high price to remain there”. The Zionist offensive has killed over 47,000 people in Gaza, the majority civilians. – Agencies

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