President Trump said in a phone call on Saturday that he told Jordan's King Abdullah II that he wanted Jordan and Egypt to take in more Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, and that the idea was a sign of concern about the future of nearly 2 million Palestinians. It is likely to reignite the debate.
“I told him, 'I would love for you to do more, because I'm looking at the entire Gaza Strip right now, and it's a mess,'” Trump told reporters on Air Force One. Ta. He added that he hoped Egypt would welcome more Palestinians and said he planned to speak to the country's President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi on Sunday.
Trump made the remarks on a plane in the evening after a rally in Las Vegas. It is unclear whether they signal a change in U.S. policy toward the Palestinians.
As the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel enters its second week, tens of thousands of Palestinians have begun returning to their homes. This is the second pause in fighting between the two sides, since October 7, 2023, when Hamas led an attack on Israel that killed more than 1,200 Israelis. Since then, Israeli forces have killed at least 46,000 Palestinians, destroyed thousands of homes and buildings in the Gaza Strip, and killed many Hamas leaders.
Most of the two million Palestinians in Gaza have had to flee their homeland at least once. And although aid has increased in recent days, the humanitarian situation remains dire, with water, food and medicine in short supply and few operating hospitals left.
“We're talking about probably 1.5 million people, and we're just going to wipe out all of them,” Trump said of Gaza. “I don't know. Something has to happen, but it's literally a demolition site right now.”
Millions of Palestinian refugees live in camps in Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and several other countries in the Middle East. Egypt has said since the start of the war that it would not take in any more Palestinian refugees and that any attempt to force Palestinians into its territory would jeopardize its agreement with Israel.