U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday that he did not think the Palestinian people, whom he wanted to drive out of the Gaza Strip should return to the enclave once the reconstruction there has been completed.
Asked in an interview with Fox News if the Palestinians now residing in Gaza, who under Trump’s proposal will face forced displacement to make way for the rebuilding of the enclave, would “have the right to return,” Trump said, “No, they wouldn’t.”
The president’s remarks clearly contradict those of his aides, including White House press secretary Karine Leavitt, who said last week that people in Gaza would only be “temporarily relocated.”
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, too, told the press Thursday that “people are going to have to live somewhere else in the interim” while Gaza is being rebuilt.
Further pressed in the Fox News interview on where the roughly 2 million Gazans would go, Trump said, “I think I could make a deal with Jordan. I think I could make a deal with Egypt.”
Jordan and Egypt are two of Palestine’s neighbouring countries that Trump has explicitly urged to take in Palestinians from Gaza. The president told reporters Monday in the Oval Office that he “would conceivably withhold aid” to the two countries if they refused his demand.
Leaders of both Jordan and Egypt have rejected Trump’s demand that their countries, already home to a considerable number of Palestinian refugees, accommodate even more.
Trump is scheduled to meet Jordanian King Abdullah II in the White House on Tuesday.
Countries in the Middle East and other parts of the world have in recent days expressed sharp criticism of Trump’s controversial plan to take over the Gaza Strip and relocate Palestinians from the enclave.
