This week, the world watched as tens of thousands of Palestinians returned to their destroyed homes in the north of Gaza on foot.
The suspension of the march, over the delayed hand-over of female Israeli conscript Arbel Yehud, was resolved when mediators told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the radical militant group associated with Islamic Jihad that had been holding Yehud would transfer her to Hamas so she could be handed to the Red Cross over the weekend as part of the ongoing prisoner swap deal.
The images of Palestinians anxiously waiting to return to the sites of their homes devastated by 15-months of unrelenting Israeli bombardment prompted sections of the Israeli press to contest Netanyahu’s victory claims. “Netanyahu’s total victory is an illusion,” wrote Haaretz.
Across the Arab world, in Palestine, Egypt, Jordan, and elsewhere, the images, accompanied by resolute statements made by those marching home, were used to underline the commitment of Palestinians to remain on their land after US President Donald Trump talked on Saturday about expelling more than a million Palestinians into Egypt and Jordan.
“If anyone thinks that these people, who lived under Israel’s brutal war for over a year, will be willing to leave their land they must be really delusional,” said an Egyptian government source.
While the source said he was “not privy to any communications, past or present,” between Trump and President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi on the matter, he recalled the series of “firm statements” that Al-Sisi made during the past year rejecting any attempt to expel Palestinians from Gaza.
During the 15-month war, Egypt received over 120,000 Palestinians for medical and other humanitarian reasons. Egypt has also received 70 Palestinian prisoners released as part of the second prisoner swap on Saturday. The government source said that while some of the released prisoners might stay in Egypt, the majority will leave to countries who had accepted to host them to accommodate Israel’s demands they be expelled from the Palestinian Occupied Territories. He was at pains to stress this in no way suggested that Egypt was part of “a transfer deal”.
Speaking to journalists aboard Air Force One on Saturday, Trump floated the idea of “cleaning out” Gaza after 15 months of war between Israel and Hamas had reduced the Palestinian territory to a “demolition site”.
Trump said he had told Jordan’s King Abdullah II: “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 added that he planned to present the same proposal to the Egyptian president on Sunday.
“You’re talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing,” said Trump, noting it could be done “temporarily or could be long term”.
Jordan already hosts 2.3 million Palestinian refugees and has repeatedly rejected any project that would turn the kingdom into an “alternative homeland”.
Egypt’s Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, issued a statement saying there was no possibility of Egypt agreeing to — let alone taking part in — any transfer plan, and that Cairo categorically rejects the displacement of Palestinians from their land, be it “short term” or “long term”.
Egyptian and Jordanian media, civil society platforms, and political parties were quick to denounce the “Trump transfer plan”, which they characterised as an attempt to end the Palestinians’ right to statehood in contravention of international law.
On Monday, Trump was reported as saying that he had spoken with the leaders of Egypt and Jordan.
“I wish he would take some,” Trump was quoted as saying of Al-Sisi. “We helped them a lot, and I’m sure he’d help us.”
“As they say, it’s a rough neighborhood, but I think he would do it, and I think the King of Jordan would do it too.”
On Tuesday, a high-level Egyptian source issued a statement denying any talks between Trump and Al-Sisi.
According to a Cairo-based European diplomat, whatever public statements are being made “Trump has a plan and is working on having it executed”. The source added that it is the same plan proposed during Trump’s first presidency by his pro-Israeli son-in-law Jared Kushner.
During his time as senior advisor to Trump, the European diplomat said Kushner pushed forward a number of promises the Trump administration had made to Netanyahu. The first was moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The second was to suspend aid to UNRWA and help Israel work towards dissolving the UN agency. The third was to implement a transfer plan that involved moving large numbers of Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank to Egypt and Jordan.
“There is nothing new about what Trump said,” insisted the source, adding that Arab leaders were aware of the plan. The issue now is how Trump will go about pursuing it.
Trump’s statements came shortly after his administration reversed the sanctions imposed by his predecessor on extremist Israeli settlers and ended the ban on the supply of 2,000 lb bombs to Israel. The second decision was especially welcomed by Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar.
It also came within hours of Trump exempting Egypt and Israel from the aid freeze imposed by his administration, and amid claims made in US Congress that Egypt was violating the text of its peace treaty with Israel by maintaining military installations in Sinai.
According to the government source, Egypt “fully observes its peace treaty commitments and any extraordinary measures, either on the Egyptian or Israeli side, are taken on the basis of mutual consent”.
Asked if Egypt would have to consider the Trump proposal to avoid Washington taking aggressive measures on US military aid, the source said that he did not expect such arm-twisting “to happen”.
“This is not how Egypt and the US manage their bilateral relations or work on Egyptian-Israeli relations. Egypt and the US are working together to secure the sustainability of the ceasefire in Gaza,” he said.
Egypt and Israel are “heavily engaged in the execution of the ceasefire” which will be implemented in three phases “that could take up to two years or more”. The source added that an exchange of ambassadors between the two countries, “following the end of the terms of the designated ambassadors a few months back”, is in the works.
In Israel, Trump’s plan was widely welcomed. According to the Times of Israel, extreme-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the Religious Zionism Party, said on Tuesday that he was working on finding ways to implement Trump’s plan to resettle Gaza’s population in Egypt and Jordan.
Unlike Itmar Ben-Gvir, the leader of the Jewish Power Party who walked out of Netanyahu’s coalition to protest against the ceasefire in Gaza, Smotrich stayed on. According to the European diplomat, “this was probably after Netanyahu had made promises, and it could be that Trump’s plan was one of them.”
The diplomat suggested Netanyahu’s agreement to the ceasefire deal was probably secured “after promises were conveyed”, “officially” through Trump’s trusted envoy Steve Witkoff, and “privately through Kushner”. Netanyahu is expected in Washington for talks with Trump next week.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad denounced Trump’s plan as “unacceptable” and warned it “encouraged war crimes”.
On Sunday, the Arab League cautioned that “attempts to uproot the Palestinian people from their land, whether through displacement, annexation or settlement expansion, have proven futile in the past.”
“Such actions are rejected and constitute violations of international law.”
* A version of this article appears in print in the 30 January, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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