Despite death and hunger, Palestinians reject Trump plan

When Mansur Abu Al-Kair looks out over Gaza, all the 45-year-old Palestinian sees is death, destruction and hunger after nearly two years of war between Hamas fighters and Israel.

But while Palestinian lives have been devastated by Israeli airstrikes and bombings, Al-Khair and others strongly reject US President Donald Trump's plan, which also backs Israel, to displace Gaza's 2,3 million residents. "This is our land. Who would we leave it to, where would we go?" Al-Khair, a technician by trade, told Reuters.

Trump, during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Monday, hinted at progress on a controversial initiative to relocate Palestinians from the coastal enclave.

Speaking to reporters at the start of a dinner for US and Israeli officials, Netanyahu said the US and Israel were working with other countries to provide Palestinians with a "better future", suggesting that Gazans could be relocated to neighbouring countries.

Speaking to Trump, Netanyahu said: "You know, if people want to stay - they can stay. But if they want to leave, they should be allowed to leave. It shouldn't be a prison. It should be an open place that gives people freedom of choice."

Netanyahu himself said that Israel is working with Washington to find other countries that would agree to such a plan. "We are working very closely with the US to find countries that want to achieve what they have always said - to give the Palestinians a better future. I think we are close to finding a few such countries."

Asked about Netanyahu's comments, UN human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said it "raises concerns about forced displacement." "The concept of voluntary displacement in the context of what we are currently seeing in Gaza is very questionable," she said.

Reuters recalls that five days after becoming president in January, Trump said that Jordan and Egypt should take in Palestinians from Gaza, hinting that he might be open to making the plan a long-term one. Cairo and Amman quickly rejected Trump's idea of ​​turning impoverished Gaza into a "Middle Eastern Riviera," as did Palestinians and human rights groups, who said the plan would amount to ethnic cleansing.

Asked this week about the displacement of Palestinians, Trump said that countries around Israel are helping. “We’ve had great cooperation with… the surrounding countries. … So something good is going to happen,” Trump said.

Saida, a 27-year-old Palestinian from Gaza, was disturbed by the news that Trump and Netanyahu were again mentioning the idea of ​​displacement.

Even after more than 20 months of war and multiple internal displacements, he remains deeply attached to Gaza - a small, densely populated enclave that is home to generations of refugees from the 1948 war that led to the creation of Israel.

"We have the right to leave and visit other countries of our own free will, but as Palestinians we reject the displacement plan," Said said. Palestinians have long sought to create an independent state in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem through a US-brokered peace process.

Netanyahu said at the White House on Monday that he wants peace with the Palestinians, but described any future independent Palestinian state as a platform for the destruction of Israel, which is why, as he stated, sovereign security powers must remain in Israel's hands.

When asked by reporters whether a two-state solution was possible, Trump said "I don't know" and left that to Netanyahu to answer.

“I think the Palestinians should have all the powers to govern themselves, but none of the powers that could threaten us. That means that sovereign powers, like overall security, will always remain in our hands,” Netanyahu said. He later added: “After October 7, people said that the Palestinians already have a state — the Hamas state in Gaza — and look what they did with it. They didn’t build it. They dug under, built bunkers, terror tunnels, and then they massacred our people, raped our women, beheaded our men, raided our cities and villages, our kibbutzim, and committed terrible massacres, the likes of which we haven’t seen since World War II and the Nazis, the Holocaust. So people probably won’t say, ‘Let’s give them another state.’ That would be a platform for the destruction of Israel.”

Displacement is one of the most emotional issues for Palestinians, who fear a repeat of the “nakba” (catastrophe) of 1948 when hundreds of thousands of people were expelled from their homes.

Some Palestinians, faced with relentless Israeli airstrikes and severe shortages of food, fuel, medicine and water, are looking for a way to leave, according to findings from the Palestinian Center for Policy and Public Opinion Research. “Almost half want to leave the Gaza Strip if they could,” the institute said in a May report.

The proposal, seen by Reuters, and bearing the name of a controversial US-backed humanitarian organization, outlines a plan to build large camps called "Humanitarian Transit Zones" inside - and possibly outside - Gaza to house the Palestinian population.

Recently, Israel’s defense minister outlined plans to forcibly relocate all Palestinians in Gaza to a camp in the ruins of Rafah, in a plan that legal experts and academics have described as a blueprint for crimes against humanity. Israel Katz said he had ordered the Israeli military to prepare to establish a camp, which he called a “humanitarian city,” in the ruins of the city of Rafah, the Haaretz newspaper reported.

Israeli forces would control the perimeter of that area and initially "relocate" 600.000 Palestinians to the area, and eventually the entire population of Gaza would be settled there, Katz said, adding that Israel intends to implement "an emigration plan, which will happen."

Palestinian Abu Samir al-Fakawiya said he would not leave Gaza. "This is my land," he told Reuters. He added: "Our children who became martyrs in this war are buried here. Our families. Our friends. Our relatives. We are all buried here. Whether Trump, Netanyahu or anyone else likes it - we are staying on this land."