Alwaght- Signing a fragile ceasefire in Gaza after 15 months of war has paved the way for many Palestinian to return home in Gaza. But the controversial US president Donald Trump has called on relocation of all of Gaza population to neighboring Egypt and Jordan. Trump even insisted last week, after phone calls with his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Jordanian King Abdullah II, that both Cairo and Amman would take in Palestinians from the war-torn enclave, adding that he would raise the issue with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But will Trump really be able to force Gaza residents out of the costal strip?
Failure of policy of forced migration
Over the past 15 months of genocidal war, Gaza was exposed to the most extensive bombing campaign and devastation. One of the initial aims of war expressed by hardline ministers of Israeli government like National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who resigned last week, and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich was to force the Palestinians to south of the besieged enclave and prepare the ground for Israeli settlement construction in the north. But the Israelis even failed to push the Palestinians southward and finally acceded to ceasefire and allowed return of the displaced civilians from the south to the north.
The 15-month Gaza war has resulted in at least 46,000 martyrs, at least 50,000 more deaths from hunger and cold, more than 100,000 people buried under rubble, at least 91,700 injured, the destruction of 80 percent of homes and 50 percent of all buildings in Gaza, and 20 percent of the population facing “catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity” and “severe food shortages and hunger,” with more than 1,900,000 homeless. But even this hellish situation, which many consider a genocide planned by Tel Aviv, has failed to force the people of Gaza to leave the strip, and the Palestinians are still living in Gaza despite the high cost. With this resistance, will Trump’s verbal threats really be able to force the people of Gaza to leave? The answer is clear: If 15 months of genocide failed to drive the Palestinians out of Gaza, then the threats of the US president certainly cannot go anywhere.
Opposition of host countries
Despite Trump's claims of talking to the Egyptian and Jordanian leaders about Gaza population relocation, these leaders during the war said that they are against any migration plan. Even now they are unlikely to agree to migration of Gazans and will undoubtedly resist Trump's push for his plan because the two countries are far from being able to accept new migrants as their economies are already feeling the strain.
On the other hand, a large number of the Palestinian refugees in Jordan and Egypt are always looking for an opportunity to return to their homeland, so it is natural that the host Arab countries are not willing to spend money to accept the million-strong population of refugees from Gaza. El-Sisi has stressed recently that Cairo will not participate in any campaign to expel Palestinians from Gaza. He described the forced migration of Gazans as injustice and also against Egypt’s national security, which Cairo will not approve in any way. Also, Jordan has echoed Egypt's position, and Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi has said that the kingdom's position on not accepting the displacement of Gazans abroad is irreversible and unchanged. Analysts also believe that the influx of hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians to other countries could destabilize the political, economic, and security structures of those countries.
International red light
International opposition to Trump's plan adds another hurdle to the already contentious prospect of forcibly relocating Gazans abroad. France, Germany, and the EU as the US partners brazenly voiced their opposition to the idea and the UN described such measures as "illegal." To put it differently, Trump not only does not have international backing for his idea, but also faces an international opposite front that makes his job difficult. Youssef Munir, head of the Palestine/Israel program at the Arab Center in Washington, DC, told Aljazeera that Trump's brutal plan to relocate Gazans abroad must be condemned as a violation of all international norms and fundamental rights. Munir said the idea of ethnic cleansing of Gaza is not a new idea from Trump and has been repeated many times since the war began in October 2023, but has not come to fruition.
Even Lindsey Graham, a senator close to Trump, in response to a CNN question about Trump's meaning of migration of Palestinians, said: " The idea that all the Palestinians are going to leave and go somewhere else, I don't see that to be overly practical."
