‘They will do it, okay?’: Trump insists on Jordan, Egypt taking in Gazans
‘We do a lot for them, and they’re gonna do it,’ says US president, whose envoy Witkoff says Gaza rebuild could take 10 to 15 years: ‘There is nothing left standing’
US President Donald Trump insisted on Thursday that Jordan and Egypt will support a proposal to resettle Palestinians in their countries rather than in a rebuilt Gaza Strip, despite flat refusals from both countries to consider the move.
“They will do it. They will do it. They’re gonna do it, okay? We do a lot for them, and they’re gonna do it,” Trump said when asked about the proposal during a photo op in the Oval Office.
Both Egyptian President Abdel Fatah el-Sissi and Jordan’s King Abdullah explicitly rejected the proposal on Wednesday.
“Regarding what is being said about the displacement of Palestinians, it can never be tolerated or allowed because of its impact on Egyptian national security,” Sissi said.
Trump said earlier this week that the issue would be discussed with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he travels to Washington next week.
Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, who has spent the past week on a diplomatic trip around the region, including a visit to Gaza during his larger trip to Israel, told Axios Thursday that there is “almost nothing left” of the Strip and rebuilding the war-ravaged enclave could take 10 to 15 years.
“People are moving north to get back to their homes and see what happened and turn around and leave… There is no water and no electricity. It is stunning just how much damage occurred there,” Witkoff told the US news website after visiting Gaza.
Witkoff also told Axios he has not discussed with Trump the idea of moving Palestinians from Gaza.
A UN damage assessment released this month showed that clearing over 50 million tons of rubble left in the aftermath of Israel’s campaign could take 21 years and cost up to $1.2 billion.
“There has been this perception we can get to a solid plan for Gaza in five years, but it’s impossible. This is a 10- to 15-year rebuilding plan,” Witkoff said.
“There is nothing left standing. Many unexploded ordnances. It is not safe to walk there. It is very dangerous. I wouldn’t have known this without going there and inspecting,” he added.
The debris is believed to be contaminated with asbestos, with some refugee camps struck during the war known to have been built with the material. The rubble also likely contains human remains. The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry estimates that 10,000 bodies are missing under the debris.
‘A businessman’s approach’
Hailing Witkoff’s role in the hostage negotiations, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the Megyn Kelly Podcast on Thursday that Trump has “brought a businessman’s approach to a very delicate and intractable foreign policy challenge and delivered a ceasefire that obviously has tenuous and long-term challenges to it, but there are hostages being released every day. That didn’t happen for over a year-and-a-half.”
Rubio added that Witkoff “brought the same kind of business approach to some of these challenges.”
Rubio was asked later during the interview whether he believes the American citizens slated to be released in the first phase of the hostage deal will indeed go free, and what the United States will do if they do not.
“I expect we will [see the hostages go free] because that’s the agreement that was made,” he said. “The core problem here remains… that as long as there is an entity like Hamas, [whose] express purpose is the destruction of the Jewish state, who is willing to commit horrifying atrocities against civilians, against teenage girls at a concert and do the things that they’ve done, and take hostages for a year-and-a-half — babies and elderly — and murder, and all the things that they did, that’s a threat to Israel’s national security.”
“What country in the world can be expected to live alongside an enemy that is armed, capable and willing to commit horrifying atrocities? You can’t. So I think that the ceasefire is important because it brought an end to the destruction and allowed some of the hostages to be freed — at an extraordinary cost,” Rubio continued, referring to the release of Palestinian security prisoners.
“Think how unfair that trade is, but it tells you how much we value life compared to how the other side, the Hamas animals, view this,” he said.
“The real challenge is going to be when the ceasefire period expires. Who is going to govern Gaza? Who’s going to rebuild Gaza? Who’s going to be in charge of Gaza? Because if the people who are in charge of Gaza are the same guys that created October 7, then we still have the same problem,” Rubio said, referring to the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023 that killed some 1,200 people and saw 251 hostages taken, sparking the war in Gaza.
Rubio also said that the developments in the Middle East, such as the strengthening of the Lebanese government, the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria and the weakening of Hezbollah and Iran, open the door “to things like a deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel, which would change the dynamic of the region.”
