President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said Egypt could not go along with a plan floated by US President Donald Trump to move Palestinians from Gaza, to Egypt and Jordan. PHOTO: REUTERS
- Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Jordan’s King Abdullah II rejected on Jan 29 any forced displacement of Gazans after US President Donald Trump floated an idea to move Palestinians from the territory to the two Arab countries.
In his first public response to Mr Trump’s comments, Mr Sisi said that displacing “the Palestinian people from their land is an injustice that we cannot take part in”.
Speaking at a press conference in Cairo with Kenyan President William Ruto, he added that Egypt’s historic position in favour of the creation of a Palestinian state “can never be compromised”.
Mr Sisi said Egypt was nonetheless “determined to work with President Trump, who seeks to achieve the desired peace based on the two-state solution”.
“We believe that President Trump is capable of fulfilling this long-awaited goal of establishing a just and lasting peace in the Middle East,” he added.
Meanwhile, in Brussels, Jordan’s King Abdullah II stressed his country’s “firm position on the need to keep the Palestinians on their land and to guarantee their legitimate rights, in accordance with the Israeli and Palestinian two-state solution”.
After an Israel-Hamas ceasefire took effect on Jan 19, Mr Trump had floated a plan to “clean out” the Gaza Strip, reiterating the idea on Jan 27 as he called for Palestinians to move to “safer” locations such as Egypt or Jordan.
Speaking to reporters that evening, Mr Trump said he hoped Mr Sisi “would take some” Gazans. “We helped them a lot, and I’m sure he’d help us,” he said. “As they say, it’s a rough neighbourhood, but I think he would do it, and I think the king of Jordan would do it too.”
The idea has since been roundly rejected by regional leaders, as well as by Germany and France, with both saying it was “unacceptable”.
Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, however, has called it a “great idea”, and said he was working with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “to prepare an operational plan to ensure that President Trump’s vision is realised”.
Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023, both Egypt and Jordan have warned of plans to displace Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank across their borders.
Mr Sisi has repeatedly said such a displacement would “eradicate the case for Palestinian statehood”.
Both countries, key US allies in the region, are heavily reliant on foreign aid, with Washington serving as one of their largest donors. AFP
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greenw40 on January 29th, 2025 at 19:57 UTC »
All Trump had to do was look at the size of the fence between Egypt and Gaza, then he would have realized that Egypt doesn't want them either.
sunnyspiders on January 29th, 2025 at 17:48 UTC »
What plan?
He pitches bullet points he can’t even explain suggested by other people. He doesn’t even know what he’s signing, nor does he care.
There is no plan. There aren’t even concepts of a plan.
___Scenery_ on January 29th, 2025 at 17:36 UTC »
Is Trump genuinely in Lalaland this time around? Each of his plans thus far have boiled down to "we'll have it" or "They will do it" with world leaders quickly saying "No we won't".