Palestinians oppose Trump’s relocation proposal as attempt to repeat the “Nakba” scenario
U.S. President Donald Trump said Jordan and Egypt should take more Palestinians from war-ravaged Gaza, a suggestion rejected by Hamas and all Palestinians in the enclave.
Palestinians “will not accept any offers or solutions, even if (such offers) appear to have good intentions under the guise of reconstruction, as announced in the proposals of U.S. President Trump,” Basem Naim, a member of the Hamas political bureau, told Reuters.
Another Hamas official, Sami Abu Zuhri, urged Trump not to repeat “failed” ideas tried by his predecessor Joe Biden.
“The people of Gaza have endured death and refused to leave their homeland, and they will not leave it regardless of any other reasons,” Abu Zuhri told Reuters.
Palestinian analyst Ghassan al-Khatib said Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, as well as the Jordanians and Egyptians, would reject Trump’s plan: “I don’t think that there is a place in reality for such an idea.”
Washington had said last year it opposed the forcible displacement of Palestinians. Rights groups and humanitarian agencies have for months raised concerns over the situation in Gaza, with the war displacing nearly the entire population and leading to a hunger crisis.
Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population have been internally displaced by the war. On Sunday, many of those rejected Trump’s suggestion, saying what war couldn’t achieve, politics would be too weak to do. Some called him “arrogant.”
“If he thinks he will forcibly displace the Palestinian people, (then) this is impossible, impossible, impossible. The Palestinian people firmly believe that this land is theirs, this soil is their soil,” said Magdy Seidam.
“No matter how much Israel tries to destroy, break, and show people that it had won, in reality it did not win.”
Palestinians have long been haunted by the “Nakba,” or catastrophe, when Zionist forces expelled 750,000 of them and captured 78% of the indigenous land in 1948.
Palestinians were forcibly driven out or fled to neighbouring Arab states, including Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, where many of them or their descendants still live in refugee camps. Some went to Gaza.
From the earliest days of the war, Arab governments, particularly Egypt and Jordan, said Palestinians must not be driven from land where they want to make a future state.
Top U.N. officials have added their voices to concerns about a mass displacement. U.N. aid chief Martin Griffiths said last February it was an “illusion” to think people in Gaza could evacuate to another place.
