Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi on Friday said that Arab countries are putting together a plan to rebuild the war-torn Gaza Strip without displacing its population.
During his participation at the Munich Security Conference, Safadi said, “We are working on an Arab proposal that will show that we can rebuild Gaza without displacing its people, that we can have a plan that will guarantee security and governance,” Safadi said, adding that Israel also had to think about how it wanted to see the region in 10 or 20 years time.
“Israelis also have to think long-term. For it to live in peace and security, its neighbours need to live in peace and security,” he said.
Jordan’s top diplomat said that ending the Israeli occupation and establishing an independent Palestinian state is the guarantee to achieving peace and security in the region.
Safadi also participated in the conference on Syria hosted by France, where he met with his French counterpart Jean-Noel Barrot.
During the meeting, Safadi said that there is an Arab-supported Egyptian plan that aims to rebuild the Gaza Strip without displacing its Palestinian residents, according to a Foreign Ministry statement.
The two top diplomats reiterated rejection the displacement of Palestinians, with Safadi vocing appreciation for France’s support to the two-state solution as the path to achieving just and lasting peace, the statement said.
They also stressed the importance of supporting the Syrian people in rebuilding their country on the basis that guarantees the security of Syria and its territorial unity and the voluntary return of refugees, according to the statement according to The Jordan Times.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been forcibly displaced by Israeli occupation forces during the latest military campaign against Palestinians in the northern West Bank. The goal of the offensive, which is occurring in Palestinian cities, villages, and refugee camps, is to drive the Palestinians from their homes and establish new realities that defy international law.
A Euro-Med Monitor field team observed these forced relocation efforts on Saturday 8 February, when the Israeli occupation army targeted hundreds of Palestinians from the Far’a camp in Tubas, in the northern West Bank. This displacement is part of a larger offensive that started on 2 February and has involved Israeli forces conducting frequent raids on the town of Tamoun and the Far’a camp, destroying infrastructure and homes while enforcing a rigorous curfew on the populace.
Dozens of families have been displaced in recent days, but Saturday’s displacement operations took a more dangerous turn, as hundreds of families were compelled to evacuate due to the threat of home bombings, starvation, and siege. In the face of humiliating and degrading measures, taking place in cold weather and without the provision of adequate shelter, residents were compelled to evacuate their homes via routes imposed by the Israeli military.
In its latest ethnic cleansing efforts, Israel forcibly uproots thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank by Euro-Med Human Rights Monitorhttps://t.co/rdtDCDKbQp
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been forcibly displaced by Israeli occupation forces during the latest…
The Israeli occupation announced the start of a massive military operation known as “Iron Wall” on 21 January, which started in Jenin, its refugee camp, and its towns. On 27 January, the Israeli military operation expanded to Tulkarm and the governorate’s Tulkarm and Nour Shams refugee camps. This is just one example of the systematic practices, most notably mass forced displacement, by which Israeli forces are intensifying their operations in the West Bank.
The Israeli occupation army has conducted one of the biggest forced displacement operations in the West Bank in decades, displacing over 11,000 residents of the Tulkarm camps and the majority of the Jenin camp’s 13,000 residents. These actions are akin to the strategy used by the Israeli military in the Gaza Strip, where dozens of illegitimate eviction orders resulted in the forced relocation of nearly two million Palestinians.
Israel’s practice of forcibly displacing and expelling Palestinian residents in the West Bank has been in place for years, and has worsened in the last two years. Previously, however, the perpetrators were mostly individuals or members of small groups, as evidenced by their destruction of homes, unlawful confiscation of land and properties, dismantling of a population’s infrastructure, and ejection of indigenous families or communities in favour of establishing settlement outposts, as was the case in multiple locations in Hebron and the Jordan Valley.
In addition to forced displacement, the Israeli military’s current genocidal strategy in the West Bank has involved widespread destruction. This destruction has included the bombing and burning of residential buildings and infrastructure, the cutting off of water, electricity, and communications supplies, and a killing policy that has resulted in the deaths of 30 Palestinians—including four children—and the injury of almost 300 others over the course of 19 days.
The Israeli occupation has employed a variety of additional tactics to create harsh living conditions in the West Bank. Israeli politicians have made public remarks encouraging the spread of violence there, for example. In particular, an Israeli security official speaking on Channel 14 about the cabinet’s decision to start the Jenin campaign stated, “We are starting a massive campaign in the northern West Bank, which could go on for months. We will act there just as we did in Gaza. We will leave them in ruins.”
Israel is encouraged by its decades-long impunity and the international community’s general attitude of helplessness that accompanied the Israeli crime of in the Gaza Strip for over 15 months. With its recent escalation in aggression, Israel threatens to repeat its Gaza genocide in the West Bank.
In order to protect Palestinian civilians and put an end to Israel’s operation in the West Bank, the international community must act immediately. Israel has repeatedly declared its intention to annex the West Bank and establish sovereignty over it, which has led to the ongoing military operation.
The international community must uphold the Palestinian people’s rights to freedom and dignity; support their right to self-determination, in line with international law; stop Israeli settler colonialism and illegal occupation of Palestinian territory; dismantle its apartheid against, and systematic isolation of, the Palestinians; lift the illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip; hold Israeli perpetrators and their Western allies accountable and prosecute them; and ensure surviving Palestinian victims receive compensation and redress.
A demonstration was held in South Korea in protest of Trump’s remarks about taking over the Gaza Strip after expelling Palestinians to other countries.
In a proposal that has sent shockwaves across the globe, President Donald Trump’s suggestion that the US “take over” the Gaza Strip and turn it into a “Riviera of the Middle East” has faced fierce criticism from legal experts and human rights activists.
Trump’s controversial plan came during a joint news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, where he said the US “will take over the Gaza Strip,” and proposed the permanent resettlement of Palestinians.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio later clarified Trump’s remarks, describing the plan as a “generous” offer aimed at rebuilding the war-ravaged enclave, adding that “people can move back in” after reconstruction.
According to Michael Lynk, who served as the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territories from 2016 to 2022, Trump’s plan “clearly” violates international law.
“Under international law, it’s clearly illegal,” Lynk, currently an associate professor at the University of Western Ontario, told Anadolu. “Just talking about the forced displacement of Palestinians — the ethnic cleansing of the 2.2 million Palestinians in Gaza — that would be a serious violation of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, which both the United States and Israel have signed on to.”
#Trump "has no legal authority to do what he proposed. Expelling a people from their land so that #America or #Israel can take it is a #WarCrime. So, you have one convicted criminal and one alleged criminal [#Netenyahu] making plans that are illegal." https://t.co/bj20q1hGRe
Lynk also pointed out the legal repercussions of such an action under the 1998 Rome Statute, which established the International Criminal Court (ICC).
“It would also be a crime against humanity,” he added, noting that the ICC has jurisdiction over Gaza, even though neither the US nor Israel are signatories of the Rome Statute. “Their leaders could be criminally liable for initiating forced displacement of the Palestinians.”
As the world watches closely, the UN Security Council has already addressed Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed nearly 62,000 people, having added thousands who are missing in the rubble, since a cross-border attack by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, according to Gaza’s authorities.
In June 2024, the Security Council adopted resolution 2735, calling for an immediate and durable ceasefire in Gaza and rejecting any attempts at “demographic or territorial change” in the Gaza Strip.
“We have both these strong legal and diplomatic guardrails that would be opposed to this,” Lynk said, referring to the both Rome Statute and the June 2024 Security Council resolution.
‘Clearly a war crime’
Jonathan Kuttab, an international human rights lawyer and Executive Director of the Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA), a movement of Palestinian Christians, also voiced strong criticism of Trump’s controversial Gaza plan. Describing the proposal as “shocking on many levels,” Kuttab said that it “totally disregards international law.”
“You can’t just go and take another piece of territory and own it,” he told Anadolu. “It’s a war crime. It’s clearly a war crime.”
Kuttab also pointed to the moral dimensions of the plan, calling it “totally immoral.”
He questioned how it was even conceivable to displace over 2 million people in the Gaza Strip from their homes, likening this to an attempt at ethnic cleansing.
“He (Trump) is saying it in the presence of Netanyahu, who’s smirking because he’s the one who destroyed Gaza,” Kuttab noted. “It’s totally unacceptable. It’s also anachronistic.”
Kuttab added that the proposal’s underlying motive was both ideological and practical.
“The ideological aspect is to get people to start thinking in terms of accepting the idea that Palestinians can be removed from Palestine permanently,” he said. “The practical thing is to allow Netanyahu’s government to survive … The government will collapse unless you resume the war, or unless you do something to get rid of the people in Gaza. So Trump is willing to do the work for Netanyahu.”
ICC’s ability to issue arrest warrants for Trump
Lynk also indicated that if the US, with the support of Israel, forcibly removes Palestinians from Gaza and forces them either to Egypt or Jordan, the ICC would have the ability to issue arrest warrants for Trump, Netanyahu, and others involved in such a plan.
The implications of Trump’s proposal extend beyond legal concerns. The international community, particularly in the Arab and Muslim world, have strongly rejected such a move. Everyone in the region and beyond remembers the long history of Palestinian displacement, including the 1948 Nakba, when over 750,000 Palestinians were forced to flee their homes, never to be able to go back.
“No Arab or Muslim leader in the region could ever support the forced displacement of Palestinians,” Lynk said.
If Palestinians must leave Gaza, ‘the appropriate place would be Israel’
“If Palestinians have to leave Gaza in order for the rubble to be removed from the war that Israel inflicted on Gaza and to remove the 30,000 unexploded munitions in Gaza, then … the appropriate place for them to move to would be Israel itself,” he suggested.
This, Lynk argued, would fulfill the right of return as enshrined in UN Resolution 194, which guarantees Palestinians this right to go back to their homes that Israel forced them to leave.
“That would seem to be the path that is most consistent with international law and with a rights-based approach.”
The implications of Trump’s proposal could reach beyond the borders of Gaza. Lynk expressed concern that the plan could pave the way for further Israeli settlements in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Trump has already reversed Biden-era policies regarding the West Bank by removing sanctions on Israeli settlers and groups.
‘We don’t have to wait for the Hague to act’
Lynk and Kuttab agree that Trump’s plan would be dead on arrival, given the unified rejection it would face from the Arab and Muslim world.
However, Kuttab warned that if Trump attempts to follow through, it would severely undermine the international order.
“The Security Council, of course, will do nothing, because there is the veto power there, but national countries have the right under international law — in fact, the obligation to do something,” he continued.
“We don’t have to wait for the Hauge to act … Every country has local courts that can carry out and implement international law, because crimes against humanity and war crimes have universal jurisdiction,” he stressed in Anadolu.
China on Wednesday rebuffed US President Donald Trump’s plans to over “take over” Gaza, saying it opposes forced displacement of Palestinians to neighboring countries, state media reported.
Beijing “has always believed that ‘the Palestinians governing Palestine’ is the fundamental principle for postwar governance in Gaza,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian told reporters.
“We oppose the forced displacement and relocation of the population in Gaza,” Lin stressed, rejecting Trump’s controversial plans to take over the Palestinian besieged enclave.
The statement from Beijing came after Trump announced a plan for the US to “take over” the Gaza Strip and “develop it after relocating Palestinians to neighboring countries.”
Trump made the remarks in a joint news conference in Washington with visiting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“The US will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too,” he said. “We’re going to develop it, create thousands and thousands of jobs, and it’ll be something that the entire Middle East can be very proud of.”
Trump gave no details on how the US would carry out the resettlement plan.
China’s Foreign Ministry, in contrast, said it hopes “all relevant parties will take the ceasefire in Gaza and post-war governance as an opportunity to push the Palestinian issue back onto the correct track of political resolution based on the ‘two-state solution,’ in order to achieve lasting peace in the Middle East,” according to Anadolu.
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