Jordanian officials have immediately rejected President Trump’s proposal to “clean out” Gaza by sending more than a million Palestinian refugees to Jordan and Egypt.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said Sunday that the kingdom in Amman condemns Trump’s plan and that under no condition would it accept the Palestinians displaced by more than 15 months of war with Israel.
“Our rejection of the displacement of Palestinians is firm and will not change,” Safadi said in a statement. “Jordan is for Jordanians, and Palestine is for Palestinians.”
The rebuke from Amman comes just a day after Trump floated his idea to clear out the war-torn Gaza Strip, which continues to suffer from a humanitarian crisis.
Trump claimed he spoke with Jordan’s ruler, Abdullah II, on Saturday about accepting more than 1.5 million refugees along with Egypt, saying the housing “could be temporary” or “could be long-term.”
Jordan already houses nearly 2.4 million Palestinian refugees, according to the UN.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who is expected to speak with Trump on the issue, has repeatedly expressed security concerns over any mass migration from Gaza during the war.
Early in the conflict, Cairo warned Israel that it was jeopardizing the historic Israel-Egypt peace treaty of 1979 over the war in Gaza, which threatened to spill over into Egypt after more than a million refugees inundated the Palestinian city of Rafah, which borders Egypt.
Egypt and Jordan remain major US partners in the Middle East, with the former being the second-largest recipient of American foreign aid after Israel.
Meanwhile, the Jewish state appeared split on Trump’s idea.
Former National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who resigned over the cease-fire deal, commended the plan after spending recent months proposing a pitch for Israel to annex Gaza.
Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich also touted the idea, claiming it was for the Palestinian refugees’ own good to leave Gaza.
Gilad Kariv was the first Israeli representative to speak out against the issue, warning that the mass migration could have a negative impact on relations with key allies in the Middle East.
“Israel has no interest in this happening, certainly not in relation to Jordan, because the stability of the Hashemite Kingdom is a clear security interest of Israel,” Kariv told local 103FM radio, according to a Times of Israel translation.
With Post wires
