United States President Donald Trump has unveiled his shocking plan to take over the Gaza Strip after Palestinians are forcibly moved out of the besieged enclave, spurring fears he would back an ethnic cleansing campaign,
Al Jazeera reports.
During a news conference with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, Trump suggested Palestinians would “love to leave” Gaza, saying he foresees long-term US ownership of the Strip while it’s being rebuilt, claiming to bring jobs and economic prosperity to the area.
Trump’s comments drew sharp responses in the US and abroad. Here are some key reactions from around the world.
Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said the call for Palestinians in Gaza to be ethnically cleansed was an “expulsion from their land”.
“Trump’s remarks about his desire to control Gaza are ridiculous and absurd, and any ideas of this kind are capable of igniting the region,” Abu Zuhri said. “We consider them [the plan] a recipe for generating chaos and tension in the region because the people of Gaza will not allow such plans to pass.”
Hamas spokesman Abdel Latif al-Qanou said “the American racist stance aligns with the Israeli extreme right’s position in displacing our people and eliminating our cause.”
President Mahmoud Abbas strongly rejected any plans to displace Palestinians from Gaza, saying “we will not allow any infringement of the rights of our people, which we have struggled for decades and made great sacrifices to achieve.”
“These calls represent a serious violation of international law,” he said. “Peace and stability will not be achieved in the region without establishing a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital on the borders of 1967, based on the two-state solution.”
While Trump claimed that Riyadh was not demanding a Palestinian homeland, Saudi Arabia said it would not normalise ties with Israel without the creation of a Palestinian state.
The foreign ministry said it rejected any attempts to displace the Palestinians from their land and described its stance as “clear and explicit” as well as not negotiable.
“Saudi Arabia also reiterates its previously announced unequivocal rejection of any infringement on the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, whether through Israeli settlement policies, the annexation of Palestinian lands, or attempts to displace the Palestinian people from their land,” it said.
“There are Israeli plans to take full control of the occupied West Bank and attempts to displace Palestinians from the Gaza Strip,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, adding that “practicing a policy of collective punishment is a method that Russia rejects”.
China’s foreign ministry said it opposes the forced transfer of the people of Gaza and hopes all parties will take ceasefire and post-conflict governance as an opportunity to bring the Palestinian issue back to a political settlement based on the two-state solution.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said Trump’s comments were “unacceptable” and warned that leaving Palestinians “out of the equation” would lead to more conflict.
Fidan said Turkiye would review the steps it had taken against Israel – cutting off trade and recalling its ambassador – if the killing of Palestinians stopped and their conditions changed.
“France reiterates its opposition to any forced displacement of the Palestinian population of Gaza, which would constitute a serious violation of international law, an attack on the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinians, but also a major obstacle to the two-state solution and a major destabilising factor for our close partners Egypt and Jordan as well as for the entire region,” Foreign ministry spokesman Christophe Lemoine said in a statement.
