Speaking to reporters Saturday, U.S. President Donald Trump said he would like to see most of the population of war-torn Gaza be relocated to Jordan and Egypt, a plan that a number of observers said was tantamount to ethnic cleansing. Trump made the remarks the same day that he lifted a Biden-era hold on the supply of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel.
“I’d like Egypt to take people. And I’d like Jordan to take people,” Trump said, according to the Financial Times. “You’re talking about a million and half people, and we just clean out that whole thing.” Gaza’s population was 2.2 million in 2023.
“‘Clean out’ is barely even a euphemism. This is ethnic cleansing, call it what it is,” wrote Assal Rad, the author of a book on modern Iran, on X, reacting to an Associated Press article about Trump’s comments.
The independent reporter Talia Jane wrote: “What’s it called when you clean out an ethnic group from a region.”
“He’s just openly endorsing/encouraging ethnic cleansing,” wrote the journalist Mehdi Hasan on Saturday. Others chimed in with similar remarks.
Trump’s comments were made nearly a week after a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas went into effect, halting 15 months of war that was triggered by a Hamas deadly attack on Israel in October, 2023 and which left tens of thousands of Palestinians dead, according to local health officials.
Homes, shelter, and infrastructure has also been largely decimated in the Gaza Strip by Israel’s military campaign there. Trump said that Gaza is “literally a demolition site right now. Almost everything’s demolished and people are dying there, so I’d 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,” per CNN.
“What the occupation has failed to achieve through its criminal bombardment and genocide in Gaza will not be implemented through political pressures,” said independent Palestinian politician Mustafa Barghouti, according to CNN. “The conspiracy of ethnic cleansing will not succeed in Gaza or the West Bank.”
Trump also told reporters that he had already discussed the idea to relocate Gazans with King Abdullah of Jordan on Saturday. He said he planned to bring up the plan during a Sunday phone call with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah A-Sisi.
Trump’s proposal would be a departure from the United States’ official position of forging a negotiated “two state solution” for Israel and Palestine, although some say that the United States’ policies towards the region, including the nearly unqualified support for Israel during its campaign in Gaza, have undercut that goal.
Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich endorsed Trump’s remarks, according to CNN, saying “the idea of helping [Gazans] find other places to start new, better lives is a great idea.”
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