President Donald Trump indicated Saturday that he had spoken with the king of Jordan about potentially building housing and moving more than 1 million Palestinians from Gaza to neighboring countries, a remarkable proposal from a sitting US president.
Trump said he asked Jordan’s Abdullah II, a key US partner in the region, to take in more Palestinians in a Saturday phone call.
“I said to him that I’d love you to take on more, because I’m looking at the whole Gaza Strip right now and it’s a mess, it’s a real mess,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One.
Jordan’s state news agency Petra reported the call with Trump, but made no mention of relocating Palestinians. The kingdom is already home to more than 2.39 million registered Palestinian refugees, according to the UN.
Trump said he would like both Jordan and Egypt – which borders the battered enclave – to house people, and that he would speak to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi about the matter on Sunday.
“You’re talking about a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing,” Trump said, adding that there have been centuries-long conflicts in the region.
He continued: “I don’t know, something has to happen, but it’s literally a demolition site right now. Almost everything’s demolished and people are dying there, so I’d rather get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing in a different location where I think they could maybe live in peace for a change.”
The president, a former property developer, said that the potential housing “could be temporary” or “could be long-term.”
As well as killing tens of thousands of people, the 15-month war between Israel and Hamas has reduced much of Gaza to rubble. Israeli airstrikes have damaged or destroyed around 60 per cent of buildings, including schools and hospitals, and around 92 per cent of homes, according to the UN.
Approximately 90% of Gazans have been displaced, and many residents have been forced to move repeatedly, some more than 10 times, according to the UN.
Trump’s comments appear to break with decades of US foreign policy, which has long emphasized a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine.
There has long been a fear in the region that Israel wants to push Palestinians out of Gaza into neighboring countries – a premise Israel rejects but one supported by far-right factions of its governing coalition.
El-Sisi criticized Israel’s move to evacuate more than a million residents from northern Gaza in October 2023, characterizing it as part of a larger plan to rid the entire area of Palestinians.
“The displacement or expulsion of Palestinians from the (Gaza) Strip into Egypt simply means that a similar situation will also take place – namely the expulsion of Palestinians from the West Bank to Jordan,” Sisi said, adding that there would be no point in discussing a Palestinian state, as “the land will be there, but the people won’t.”
Around the same time, King Abdullah called the idea of more Palestinian refugees moving to Jordan or Egypt a “red line.”
Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, an independent Palestinian politician, said he “completely rejected” Trump’s comments.
“What the occupation has failed to achieve through its criminal bombardment and genocide in Gaza will not be implemented through political pressures,” Barghouti said in a statement, adding “The conspiracy of ethnic cleansing will not succeed in Gaza or the West Bank.”
There are some 5.9 million Palestinian refugees worldwide, most of them descendants of people who fled with the creation of Israel in 1948.
Upon taking office this week, Trump rescinded Biden-era sanctions against Israeli settlers deemed responsible for deadly violence in the occupied West Bank, in a move welcomed by Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has argued strenuously for Israel to re-establish Jewish settlements in Gaza abandoned under an Israeli order in 2005.
Smotrich quickly endorsed Trump’s latest comments, saying “the idea of helping (Gazans) find other places to start new, better lives is a great idea.”
“For years, politicians have proposed unrealistic solutions like dividing the land and establishing a Palestinian state, which endangered the existence and security of the only Jewish state in the world, and only led to bloodshed and suffering for many people,” he said in a statement released by his spokesperson.
“Only out-of-the-box thinking with new solutions will bring a peace and security solution.”
Trump said earlier this week that he “might” be able to have a role in rebuilding Gaza, praising it as having a “phenomenal location, on the sea” and “the best weather.”
The comments echoed remarks made by his son-in-law Jared Kushner in February 2024 when Kushner called the waterfront property in Gaza “very valuable” and suggested Israel should move Palestinians out of Gaza and “clean it up.”
Trump also confirmed he had lifted a Biden-era hold on the provision of 2,000-pound bombs for Israel.
“We released them today and they’ll have them. They paid for them and they’ve been waiting for them for a long time,” he told reporters.
CNN previously reported the Trump administration had lifted the hold.
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