CAIRO (AP) - Powerful Arab countries on Saturday rejected U.S. President Donald Trump's proposal to resettle Palestinians from Gaza to neighboring Egypt and Jordan.
Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, the Palestinian Authority and the Arab League issued a joint statement rejecting any plans to transfer Palestinians from their territories in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Trump floated the idea last month, saying he would urge the leaders of Jordan and Egypt to take in Gazans who are now largely homeless, so "we'll just clean the whole place up." He added that resettlement of most of Gaza's 2.3 million residents could be temporary or long-term. Some Israeli officials raised the idea of redeployment early in the war.
"It's literally a wreck now," Trump said, referring to the immense destruction wrought by Israel's 15-month war with Hamas, which is now suspended by a fragile truce. The Arab statement warned that such plans "threaten the stability of the region, risk spreading conflict and undermine the prospects for peace and coexistence among its peoples".
The statement followed a meeting in Cairo between top diplomats from Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, as well as Hussein al-Sheikh, a senior Palestinian official who serves as the main liaison with Israel, and Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul-Gheit.
apnews.com / photo: wikipedia commons / gnews.cz-jav
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