Five Arab foreign ministers, along with a senior Palestinian official, sent a joint letter to United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio, voicing strong opposition to President Donald Trump’s late January proposal to displace Palestinians from Gaza.
The letter was sent on Monday and signed by the foreign ministers of Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE, as well as Palestinian presidential adviser Hussein al-Sheikh. It was reported first by Axios, which said the top diplomats met in Cairo over the weekend.
Letter Emphasises Gaza’s Reconstruction
The Arab nations’ letter emphasised that “Reconstruction in Gaza should be through direct engagement with and participation of the people of Gaza, and Palestinians will live in their land and help rebuild it.”
“And they should not be stripped of their agency during reconstruction as they must take ownership of the process with the support of the international community,” it continued.
The letter’s delivery followed a weekend meeting in Cairo between the officials and Tim Lenderking, the former U.S. special envoy to Yemen and current senior official in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs at the State Department, as reported by Egypt’s State Information Service.
Trump’s Gaza Displacement Proposal
Trump first floated the suggestion of Jordan and Egypt taking in Palestinians from Gaza on January 25. When asked if he was suggesting that as a long-term or short-term solution, the president said: “Could be either.”
The U.S. president’s comments echoed long-standing Palestinian fears of being permanently driven from their homes and were labelled as a proposal of ethnic cleansing by critics. Jordan, Egypt and other Arab nations opposed the proposal.
Genocide Accusations
Israel’s military assault on Gaza has killed over 47,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health ministry, and led to accusations of genocide and war crimes that Israel denies. The fighting has currently paused amid a fragile ceasefire.
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on October 7, 2023, when Palestinian Hamas militants attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
(With inputs from Reuters)
