Tens of thousands of displaced Gaza residents ended months of exile in temporary camps and began returning to what was left of their homes on Monday after Israel opened a corridor into the north of the battered enclave. <\/p>\n
For days, they had sat out in the streets or on a beach with their mattresses, belongings, and water tanks, waiting for the checkpoint to open under the terms of the ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe miss our home. We have been living in tents for 470 days,\u201d said Fadi Al Sinwar, from Gaza City on Sunday. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to return home \u2026 Even though my house is destroyed. I miss my land and my place,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Their return was pushed back by 48 hours after Israel accused Hamas of breaching the terms of the ceasefire agreement over the release of hostage Arbel Yehud, delaying the opening of the Netzarim corridor that bisects the territory. <\/p>\n
Hamas and Israel agreed to release more hostages, including Yehud, on Thursday and Saturday, the Israeli Prime Minister\u2019s Office said on Sunday. <\/p>\n
Under the agreement, Israel would allow Gazans to return to the north from Monday morning, according to the office. <\/p>\n
The incident escalated tensions and threatened to derail the already fragile truce. <\/p>\n
Those tensions heightened further on Saturday after President Donald Trump said he had discussed his plan to \u201cclean out\u201d Gaza with the king of Jordan and intended to raise the matter with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. <\/p>\n
The US president said he would like both Jordan and Egypt \u2014 which borders Gaza \u2014 to house hundreds of thousands of Palestinians either temporarily or \u201clong term,\u201d telling reporters onboard Air Force One, \u201cbecause I\u2019m looking at the whole Gaza Strip right now and it\u2019s a mess, it\u2019s a real mess.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s literally a demolition site right now,\u201d Trump said of Gaza, much of which lies in ruins from relentless Israeli strikes during its 15-month war with Hamas. \u201cI\u2019d 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.\u201d <\/p>\n
Both Jordan and Egypt rejected Trump\u2019s idea to shift Palestinians out of the enclave, saying such a move would displace Palestinians from their homeland. Trump\u2019s comments were also strongly condemned by Palestinian leaders and human rights groups, who denounced the forced relocation of residents as ethnic cleansing and a possible war crime. <\/p>\n
\u201cOur refusal of displacement is a steadfast position that will not change,\u201d Jordan\u2019s minister of foreign affairs said in a statement Sunday. Jordan is committed to \u201censuring that Palestinians remain on their land,\u201d Ayman Safadi said, adding: \u201cJordan is for Jordanians, and Palestine is for Palestinians.\u201d <\/p>\n
Jordan is already home to more than 2.39 million registered Palestinian refugees and more than half a million war-displaced Syrians, according to the United Nations. <\/p>\n
Egypt has also taken in huge numbers of refugees from Syria, South Sudan, Libya, Iraq and other African nations, and has repeatedly opposed previous attempts to evacuate Gazan residents across its borders. <\/p>\n
Egypt\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs reiterated the country\u2019s position against \u201cthe displacement of Palestinians from their land through forced eviction\u201d in a statement Sunday. <\/p>\n
\u201cSuch actions threaten stability, risk extending the conflict further in the region, and undermine opportunities for peace and coexistence,\u201d the statement added. <\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s comments appear to break with decades of US foreign policy, which has long emphasized a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine. <\/p>\n
But Trump\u2019s idea to ultimately move residents to another country has only raised fears of further mass displacement among Palestinians. <\/p>\n
The Palestinian Presidency said the plan \u201cconstitutes a blatant violation of red lines Palestinian leadership have consistently warned about.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThe Palestinian people will never abandon their lands or their Holy Sites, and will not allow the repetition of the Nakba of 1948 and Naksa 1967,\u201d the presidency said. <\/p>\n
The movement of Palestinian refugees out of Gaza would evoke painful memories of the mass displacement that accompanied the creation of Israel in 1948. There are some 5.9 million Palestinian refugees worldwide, most of them descendants of the 700,000 people who were expelled or fled their homes during the Nakba, or catastrophe. <\/p>\n
Hundreds of thousands more were displaced during the 1967 war, when Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan and Gaza from Egypt. <\/p>\n
There are fears that if carried out, Trump\u2019s plan would bring an end to any future prospect of Palestinian-Israeli peace based on a two-state solution. <\/p>\n
Hamas in a statement said it will \u201ccategorically reject any plans to deport and displace them from their land,\u201d and called on the US administration to \u201cstop these proposals.\u201d <\/p>\n
Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad also condemned Trump\u2019s \u201creprehensible statements\u201d and called the proposal \u201ca continuation of the policy of denying the existence of the Palestinian people, their will and their rights.\u201d <\/p>\n
Human rights groups have also denounced the idea. <\/p>\n
Human Rights Watch\u2019s Israel and Palestine Director Omar Shakir said in a post on X that it \u201cwould amount to an alarming escalation in the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people and exponentially increase their suffering.\u201d <\/p>\n
US-based advocacy group the Council on American\u2013Islamic Relations (CAIR), said Trump\u2019s idea was \u201cdelusional and dangerous nonsense.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThe Palestinian people are not willing to abandon Gaza, and neighboring countries are not willing to help Israel ethnically cleanse Gaza,\u201d CAIR said on X. <\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s plan was supported by Israeli far-right politicians, however. <\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has argued strenuously for Israel to re-establish Jewish settlements in Gaza abandoned under an Israeli order in 2005, quickly endorsed Trump\u2019s comments. <\/p>\n
\u201cFor 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,\u201d he said in a statement released by his spokesperson. <\/p>\n
\u201cOnly out-of-the-box thinking with new solutions will bring a peace and security solution.\u201d <\/p>\n
Chairman of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, Itamar Ben Gvir, congratulated Trump on the proposal. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think that when the president of the world\u2019s largest power himself raises this idea, then the Israeli government should implement encouraging immigration, now,\u201d he said. Ben Gvir was Israel\u2019s national security minister before resigning from Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s cabinet in protest at the Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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