TRUMP’S PLAN FOR GAZA
Gaza, one of the world’s most densely populated areas, has been devastated by Israel’s military offensive. The enclave is short of food, water and shelter, and in need of billions of dollars in foreign aid.
More than 48,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, the Gaza health ministry says, and nearly all of Gaza’s pre-war population of 2.3 million has been internally displaced by the conflict.
About 1,200 people were killed in the Oct 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on southern Israeli communities and about 250 were taken to Gaza as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Trump said last week the US should take over Gaza and move out more than 2 million Palestinian residents so the enclave can be developed into the “Riviera of the Middle East”. Netanyahu has praised the plan and said on Tuesday the security cabinet endorsed it.
Trump’s plan has enraged Palestinians and Arab leaders and upended decades of US policy that endorsed a two-state solution in which Israel and a Palestinian state would coexist.
The forcible displacement of a population under military occupation is a war crime banned by the 1949 Geneva conventions.
Trump restated his position as he met Jordan’s King Abdullah on Tuesday at the White House amid widespread opposition to his plan among Washington’s Arab allies, including Jordan.
Palestinians fear a repeat of what they call the Nakba, or catastrophe, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were driven out during the 1948 war that accompanied Israel’s creation. Israel denies they were forced out.
For Jordan, Trump’s talk of resettlement comes dangerously close to its nightmare of a mass expulsion of Palestinians from both Gaza and the West Bank, echoing an idea long promoted by ultra-nationalist Israelis of Jordan becoming an alternative Palestinian home.
Gazans interviewed by Reuters criticised Trump for saying he would be prepared for “hell” to break out if all the Israeli hostages were not released by noon on Saturday.
“Hell worse than what we have already? Hell worse than killing? The destruction, all the practices and human crimes that have occurred in the Gaza Strip have not happened anywhere else in the world,” said Jomaa Abu Kosh, a Palestinian from Rafah in southern Gaza, standing beside demolished homes.
Source: CNA
