Egypt, Jordan discuss 'united Arab position' on Mideast peace

US officials defend Trump’s call to relocate Gazans from ‘uninhabitable plot of land’

Trump thinks it’s ‘inhumane’ to force people to live there while it is being rebuilt, wants to work with partners on creative solutions, source says; Rafah resident: ‘Delusional’

A Palestinian man uses a ladder to leave his damaged home in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on February 4, 2025. (Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
A Palestinian man uses a ladder to leave his damaged home in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on February 4, 2025. (Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)

US officials on Tuesday defended President Donald Trump’s suggestion that more Palestinians in war-shattered Gaza relocate to neighboring countries, insisting he was trying to look at the problem realistically and not imposing a solution.

Previewing Trump’s White House talks later on Tuesday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the senior officials sought to soften what was widely seen as Trump’s call for mass displacement of Gazans from the enclave, which Arab states and Palestinian leaders have vehemently rejected.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, stressed that the US wants to work with its Arab partners and Israel to come up with creative solutions to the challenge.

The suggestion that Trump made last month echoed the wishes of Israel’s far-right, and contradicted former president Joe Biden’s commitment against mass resettlement of Palestinians.

The officials stopped short of explicitly reiterating Trump’s call for Jordan and Egypt to take in more Gazans, but also did not retract his suggestion.

“President Trump looks at the Gaza Strip and sees it as a demolition site, sees it as impractical for it to be rebuilt within three to five years, believes it will take at least 10 to 15 and thinks it is inhumane to force people to live in an uninhabitable plot of land with unexploded ordnances and rubble,” one senior official told reporters.

Trump “is looking for solutions to help the people of Gaza have normal lives while the Gaza Strip is being rebuilt, and he is trying to look at this in a realistic way,” the official added.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi spoke with Jordan’s King Abdullah II on Tuesday, stressing the need to adopt a united position that would help achieve regional peace.

According to Sissi’s office, the phone call addressed “developments in the region,” including the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and the need for “the rapid reconstruction” of the territory.

Left: US President Donald Trump at Trump National Doral Miami, January 27, 2025. (Mandel Ngan/AFP); Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi at the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the Arab League joint extraordinary leaders summit in Riyadh, November 11, 2024. (SPA / AFP)

The two leaders “stressed the need to commit to the united Arab position calling for reaching permanent peace in the Middle East,” the Egyptian presidency said in a statement.

Egypt and Jordan, both key US allies, have been under pressure to accept Trump’s proposal to “clean out” the Strip by sending Palestinians to their territories, either temporarily or permanently.

Cairo and Amman have issued repeated strong rejections while making overtures to their Washington ally.

King Abdullah on Sunday accepted an invitation to visit the White House later this month, a day after Sissi and Trump exchanged mutual invitations for state visits.

Sissi had told Trump the world was “counting on” him for a “permanent and historic peace agreement” to end the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis, calling him a “man of peace.”

The United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have also voiced opposition to any forced displacement of Palestinians, while stressing the need to implement a two-state solution to the protracted conflict.

US President Donald Trump, left, stands with King Abdullah II of Jordan during Trump’s first administration, at the White House, June 25, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)

Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi has said that “any discussion of an alternate homeland… is rejected,” while Cairo has repeatedly called the issue a “red line” that would threaten its national security.

Five Arab foreign ministers and a senior Palestinian official sent a joint letter to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday, urging the Trump administration to back a two-state solution and rejecting suggestions that residents be resettled.

Many Palestinians have been incensed by Trump’s remarks suggesting Gazans should relocate.

“Trump thinks Gaza is a pile of garbage — absolutely not,” Rafah resident Hatem Azzam, 34, told AFP, attacking Trump’s choice of words when he told reporters last week of his plan to “clean out the whole thing.”

Calling him “delusional,” Azzam said Trump “wants to force Egypt and Jordan to take in migrants, as if they were his personal farm.”

A Palestinian woman inspects her damaged home in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on February 4, 2025. (Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)

“Trump and Netanyahu must understand the reality of the Palestinian people and the people of Gaza. This is a people deeply rooted in their land — we will not leave,” Azzam said.

Ihab Ahmed, another Rafah resident, claimed that Trump and Netanyahu “still don’t understand the Palestinian people” and their attachment to the land.

“We will remain on this land no matter what. Even if we have to live in tents and on the streets, we will stay rooted in this land,” the 30-year-old said.

Ahmed told AFP that Palestinians had learned lessons from Israel’s 1948 War of Independence. At the time, after rejecting the UN’s partition plan for two states, multiple Arab armies attacked the nascent Jewish state. In the ensuing war, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were driven out of their homes and never allowed to return.

“The world must understand this message: We will not leave, as happened in 1948.”

A Palestinian man sits for a haircut in front of a destroyed building in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on February 4, 2025. (Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)

Standing near crumbling building blocks destroyed by war in the northern Gaza city of Jabalia, Raafat Kalob was concerned about the consequences that Tuesday evening’s Trump-Netanyahu meeting will have on his life.

“I expect Netanyahu’s visit to Trump to reflect his future plans to forcibly displace the Palestinian people and redraw the Middle East,” he said. “I sincerely hope this plan does not succeed.”

Behind him, rows of tents provided by charity organizations lined a patch of land at the foot of concrete buildings whose facades still bear marks of war: bullet holes, blown away windows and facades stripped of their stone finishing.

The war broke out on October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists broke through the border and carried out massacres in southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people and kidnapping 251 to Gaza.

In Jabalia and Gaza’s north, areas that were hit particularly hard in the war, displaced Palestinians who returned after a ceasefire took effect on January 19 have taken residence in tents next to their destroyed homes.

Some were nevertheless optimistic, like Majid al-Zebda, a 50-year-old resident of Jabalia.

Trump “will pressure Netanyahu to end this war” permanently, he said.

The first phase of the ceasefire brought a fragile end to fighting in Gaza and started the process of a hostage and prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas, but negotiations have yet to begin for a permanent end to the war.

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