Both countries have warned of plans to displace Gazans into neighbouring Egypt and Palestinians from the West Bank into Jordan [Mohamed Elshahed/Anadolu via Getty]
Egypt and Jordan on Sunday rejected the forced displacement of Palestinians, after US President Donald Trump suggested a plan to “clean out” the Gaza Strip and move its population to the two Arab countries.
Egypt’s foreign ministry in a statement expressed Cairo’s “continued support for the steadfastness of the Palestinian people on their land”.
It “rejected any infringement on those inalienable rights, whether by settlement or annexation of land, or by the depopulation of that land of its people through displacement, encouraged transfer or the uprooting of Palestinians from their land, whether temporarily or long-term”.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said on Sunday his kingdom firmly rejects any forced displacement of Palestinians.
“Our rejection of the displacement of Palestinians is firm and will not change. Jordan is for Jordanians and Palestine is for Palestinians,” Safadi said in a statement.
After 15 months of war, Trump said Gaza had become a “demolition site” and he would “like Egypt to take people, and I’d like Jordan to take people.”
Moving Gaza’s inhabitants could be done “temporarily or could be long term”, he said.
Since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023, both countries have warned of plans to displace Palestinians from Gaza into neighbouring Egypt and from the West Bank into Jordan.
The Arab League echoed Cairo’s statements, saying on Sunday that “the forced displacement and eviction of people from their land can only be called ethnic cleansing”.
“Attempts to uproot the Palestinian people from their land, whether by displacement, annexation or settlement expansion, have been proven to fail in the past,” the regional bloc said in a statement.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, with whom Trump said he would speak on Sunday, has repeatedly warned that said displacement would aim to “eradicate the cause for Palestinian statehood”.
Sisi has described the prospect as a “red line” that would threaten Egypt’s national security.
The Egyptian foreign ministry on Sunday urged the implementation of the “two-state solution”, which Cairo has said would become impossible if Palestinians were removed from their territories.