Senior Arab officials warn Trump’s Gaza plan would inflame Middle East
Arab League secretary general says scheme would have ‘damaging effect on peace and stability’; Gulf Cooperation Council chief urges ‘give and take’ with Arab world on issue
US President Donald Trump’s plan to take over Gaza and resettle Palestinians, which has drawn global condemnation, will threaten the fragile ceasefire in the enclave and fuel regional instability, senior Arab officials said on Wednesday.
Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit warned the World Government Summit in Dubai that if Trump pressed ahead with his plan, he would lead the Middle East into a new cycle of crises with a “damaging effect on peace and stability.”
Trump enraged the Arab world by declaring unexpectedly that the United States would take over Gaza, resettle its over 2 million Palestinian population, and develop it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
“It’s unacceptable for the Arab world,” Aboul Gheit said.
Palestinians fear a repeat of the “Nakba,” or catastrophe, when nearly 800,000 people fled or were driven out during the war that started when Arab states invaded the fledgling State of Israel in 1948. Many fled to the Gaza Strip.
Trump has said that Gazans removed under his plan would have no right to return.
A three-stage ceasefire agreement, reached last month, halted some 15 months of fighting triggered by Hamas’s October 7, 2023, invasion of Israel, when it led thousands of invading terrorists who killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages.
The deal requires Hamas to release all its hostages and Israel to release thousands of Palestinian security prisoners — including hundreds serving life sentences — and cease fighting in the Strip, followed by negotiations for a “sustainable calm” and IDF withdrawal from the enclave.
Hamas has gradually been releasing hostages since the first phase of the ceasefire began on January 19, but on Monday said it would not free any more over accusations Israel was violating the deal.
The threat drew calls from the international community that Hamas honor its commitments, while Trump said that if the hostages aren’t released on time the ceasefire should be stopped.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared on Tuesday the ceasefire in Gaza would end and the military would resume fighting Hamas until it was defeated if the terror group did not release hostages by midday on Saturday. Hamas later issued a statement renewing its commitment to the ceasefire and accusing Israel of jeopardizing it.
“If the situation explodes militarily once more, all this (ceasefire) effort will be wasted,” Aboul Gheit said.
Jasem al-Budaiwi, who heads the oil-rich Gulf Cooperation Council political and economic alliance, called on Trump to remember the strong ties between the region and Washington.
“But there has to be give and take, he says his opinion, and the Arab world should say theirs; what he is saying won’t be accepted by the Arab world.”
Trump has said the Palestinians in Gaza, an impoverished tiny strip of land, could settle in countries like Jordan, which already has a huge Palestinian population, and Egypt, the Arab world’s most populous state. Both have rejected the proposal.
For Jordan, Trump’s talk of resettlement comes close to its nightmare of a mass expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank, with the idea of Jordan becoming an alternative Palestinian home long promoted by ultra-nationalist Israelis.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi partly views it as a security issue. He believes Islamists like Hamas are an existential threat to Egypt and beyond and would not welcome any members of the group crossing the border and settling in Egypt.
Egypt will host an emergency Arab summit on February 27 to discuss “serious” developments for Palestinians.
Aboul Gheit said the idea of the Arab Peace Initiative floated in 2002, in which Arab nations offered Israel normalized ties in return for a statehood deal with the Palestinians and full Israeli withdrawal from territory captured in 1967, would be reintroduced.
Trump’s plan has rattled decades of US policy that endorsed a two-state solution in which Israel and a Palestinian state would coexist.
Seventy-three of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 35 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Hamas has so far released 21 hostages — civilians, soldiers, and Thai nationals — during the ceasefire that began in January. The terror group freed 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November 2023, and four hostages were released before that.
Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 40 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape their captors.
Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the body of an IDF soldier who was killed in 2014. The body of another IDF soldier, also killed in 2014, was recovered from Gaza in January.
