Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip "have no alternative" other than to flee the coastal enclave, US President Donald Trump said Tuesday, reiterating his demand that Egypt and Jordan host the displaced.
"They have no alternative right now. I mean, they're there because they have no alternative. What do they have? It is a big pile of rubble right now," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. "It's a demolition site. The whole place is demolished. It's unsafe, it's unsanitary. It's not a place where people want to live. They have no alternative but to go back. If we gave them an alternative of living in a beautiful, open place with some nice quarters there, nice housing of sorts, and we have the money in the Middle East."
Told that Palestinians have repeatedly said they do not want to be further forced from their homeland, Trump said: "I don't know how they could want to stay," reiterating his description of Gaza as a "demolition site."
Trump reiterated his insistence that Jordan and Egypt should resettle displaced Palestinians, despite their leaders flatly rejecting the suggestion, claiming he feels "very differently about Gaza than a lot of people. I think they should get a good, fresh, beautiful piece of land, and we get some people to put up the money to build it and make it nice and make it habitable and
enjoyable."
Trump described the proposal of displacing Gaza's population as "a lot better than going back to Gaza, which has had just decades and decades of death."
Asked by a reporter if he supported Israel's re-settlement of the Palestinian territory, he said "not necessarily, no."
"I just support cleaning it up and doing something with it. But it's failed for many decades, and somebody will be sitting here in 10 years or 20 years from now, and they'll be going through the same stuff," he said.
Jordanian King Abdullah II is slated to visit the White House next week, and Trump earlier Tuesday spoke by phone with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, according to the White House.
An initial six-week phase of an ongoing ceasefire agreement took hold in Gaza on Jan. 19, halting Israel’s war, which has killed more than 47,500 people and left the enclave in ruins amid mass displacement of the civilian population and acute shortages of daily necessities.
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants in November for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
Comments About This Article
Please fill the fields below.