The entire Middle East came under renewed stress over the weekend as U.S. President Donald Trump proposed emptying the Gaza Strip of Palestinians and the ceasefire in the territory showed signs of unravelling.

Hamas said on Sunday that Palestinians “categorically reject any plans to deport or displace them from their land,” and called on Egypt and Jordan, which the United Nations says is home to some 2.4 million Palestinian refugees, to fight any such attempts.

On Saturday night, Mr. Trump said that Gaza, which has been relentlessly bombarded by Israeli forces since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, had been turned into an uninhabitable wasteland and proposed moving its residents into nearby Arab countries.

“I’d like Egypt to take people. And I’d like Jordan to take people,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday. “You’re talking about a million and half people, and we just clean out that whole thing.”

Mr. Trump said he has discussed his proposal with King Abdullah of Jordan on Saturday and intended to raise it with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Any transfer of Palestinians “risks expanding the conflict in the region and undermines prospects of peace and coexistence among its people,” Egypt’s foreign ministry said in a statement. In the past, Mr. el-Sisi has described any attempts to push Gazans into Egypt as a red line for his government.

Jordan’s Foreign Minister, Ayman Safadi, said his country condemned the idea of the forced removal of Palestinians. “Our rejection of the displacement of Palestinians is firm and will not change. Jordan is for Jordanians and Palestine is for Palestinians,” he said Sunday in a statement.

“It is 150-per-cent certain that Egypt and Jordan would reject the idea, utterly and completely, but that does not mean that the Israelis wouldn’t try to force it upon them in the future, or that the United States wouldn’t fail to stop the Israelis in their tracks,” said H.A. Hellyer, senior fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence in London and the Center for American Progress in Washington, in an interview with The Globe and Mail.

“It’s just not clear how far the Israelis would go in displacing the Palestinians, or what the Egyptians or Jordanians could do to stop them.”

The Trump proposal delivers a severe blow to American support for a two-state solution, which would see a sovereign Palestinian state created in Gaza and parts of the occupied West Bank and a capital in East Jerusalem alongside the state of Israel. The European Union and Canada support the two-state solution.

About 2.2 million Palestinians lived in Gaza before the Hamas-Israel war. Between the Palestinian deaths, which Hamas’s health authorities say is greater than 47,000, and the exodus of tens of thousands of Palestinians into Egypt, many for medical reasons, the number of inhabitants in Gaza is probably less than 2 million.

Mr. Trump’s displacement proposal occurred as Hamas, whose fighters killed about 1,200 people in Israel in the Oct. 7 attacks, and Israel accused each other of violating the ceasefire, placing it under severe strain. The deal was negotiated by U.S., Egyptian and Qatari mediators.

“The [Israeli] occupation is stalling under the pretext of prisoner Arbel Yehoud, despite the movement informing mediators that she is alive and providing all the necessary guarantees for her release,” Hamas said in a statement. “Hamas holds Israel responsible for the delay in implementing the agreement.”

Ms. Yehoud is a civilian who was abducted by Hamas in the Oct. 7 attacks on the Gaza border.

On Saturday, the militant group freed four female Israeli soldiers seized by Hamas that day; in exchange, Israel released about 200 Palestinian prisoners.

Israel said that Ms. Yehoud was supposed to be released as well and that it would not open the Netzarim corridor that bisects the northern and southern parts of the 41-kilometre-long strip until she is set free. Until that corridor is open, tens of thousands of Gazans who lived in the northern part of the strip will not be able to return home. The opening of the corridor was part of the ceasefire agreement.

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated on Sunday that Israel would not allow Palestinians to cross the corridor until Ms. Yehoud is freed. Israel had expected her release on Saturday, his office said. She is being held by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the militants who have been fighting with the larger Hamas group.

Mr. Netanyahu later confirmed that civilian Ms. Yehoud, soldier Agam Berger and another hostage will be released by Hamas. He also said in a post on X that Israel will now allow displaced Palestinians to return to northern Gaza starting Monday morning.

Mr. Trump said on Saturday that he has instructed the U.S. military to release a hold imposed by former president Joe Biden on the supply of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel. “We released them. We released them today. And they’ll have them. They paid for them and they’ve been waiting for them for a long time. They’ve been in storage,” Mr. Trump told reporters.

In a note, Sayed Ghoneim, a retired Egyptian general who is chairman of the Institute for Global Security & Defense Affairs in Abu Dhabi, said that regional stability could be jeopardized if Israel were to push Gazans into Egypt’s Sinai desert.

“What might worry Egypt is that, with the presence of Palestinians in Sinai, the Israeli army, which has absolute freedom to launch pre-emptive strikes against Palestinians wherever it feels the need, may launch strikes against Palestinians in Sinai, which is extremely dangerous for all, mainly the U.S. strategic interests in the Middle East.”

In an interview, Haneen Al Ghazali, a young Palestinian woman who left Gaza for Egypt just days before the Hamas-Israel war began, and hopes one day to return to Gaza City, said Gazans do not need to create a new homeland in Egypt or Jordan. “Gaza is our home,” she said. “Our identity is with this land. We want to rebuild our country.”

Eric Reguly
The Globe and Mail, January 26, 2025