US president has suggested that Egypt and Jordan should to take in Palestinians from Gaza.
Foreign ministers of five Arab countries have issued a joint statement rejecting the forced displacement of Palestinians from their land.
The statement, released on Saturday, presented a unified stance against US President Donald Trump’s call for Egypt and Jordan to take in Palestinians from Gaza.
Foreign ministers and officials from Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, the Palestinian Authority and the Arab League said Trump’s proposed move would threaten stability in the region, spread conflict and undermine prospects for peace.
“We affirm our rejection of [any attempts] to compromise Palestinians’ unalienable rights, whether through settlement activities, or evictions or annex of land or through vacating the land from its owners … in any form or under any circumstances or justifications,” the joint statement read.
The meeting came after Trump said last week that Egypt and Jordan should take in Palestinians from Gaza, which he called a “demolition site” following 15 months of Israeli bombardment that rendered most of its 2.3 million people homeless.
Egypt and Jordan – key US allies in the region – have repeatedly rejected Trump’s proposal to “clean out” Gaza. Jordan is home to several million Palestinians, while tens of thousands live in Egypt.
However, on Thursday, Trump reiterated the idea, saying, “We do a lot for them, and they are going to do it,” in apparent reference to abundant US aid, including military assistance, to Egypt and Jordan.
Analysts have said Trump’s proposal would amount to ethnic cleansing.
Yousef Munayyer, head of the Palestine/Israel programme at the Arab Center Washington DC, told media earlier this week that Trump’s “outrageous” statement should be condemned for violating all norms and basic rights.
“Trump says all kinds of things,” Munayyer said, explaining that the US president’s statement should be taken with a hint of scepticism.
“Sometimes, they’re things that he means. Sometimes, they’re things that he doesn’t mean. Sometimes, they’re things that he heard in a conversation that he had five minutes ago. Sometimes, they’re things that he thinks he heard but misunderstood.”
The foreign ministers on Saturday highlighted that they “look forward to working with the administration of US President Donald Trump to achieve a just and comprehensive peace in the Middle East, in accordance with the two-state solution”.
They also welcomed Egypt’s plans to hold an international conference in the near future with the United Nations that would be focused on rebuilding Gaza and affirmed the UN’s main aid agency for Palestinians, UNRWA’s “pivotal, indispensable and irreplaceable role” in the enclave which has been mostly flattened during the fifteen months war between Israel and Hamas.
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