Donald Trump’s projects of a takeover of Gaza by the United States and the displacement of the Palestinians who live there are for the time being a fairly unrealizable fantasy, as they raise an avalanche of oppositions. The American president made this announcement on Tuesday, February 4, after receiving Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, according to whom this proposal could “change history, at the White House.
Hamas accused Donald Trump of “throwing oil on fire” and said that his statements “will not contribute to stability” of the Middle East. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas rival, as well as Egypt and several Western capitals have denounced American statements, “dangerous for stability” and “the peace process” according to Paris. “In response to American calls for the move” of the Palestinians of Gaza, “we will not allow the rights of our people to be flouted,” said Mahmoud Abbas, who went to Jordan to meet King Abdallah II.
Donald Trump repeated Tuesday that the inhabitants of Gaza, in ruins after 15 months of war, could go to live in Jordan or Egypt, despite the opposition of these countries and the Palestinians themselves. “The United States will take control of the Gaza Strip,” he said alongside Benyamin Netanyahu, speaking of Palestinian territory as a “demolition site”. The American president said that the United States would “flatten the area and get rid of destroyed buildings”, in order to economically develop the territory. He spoke of a “long-term” project and said he had spoken to other countries in the region that “loved” the idea, repeating his wish to make Gaza the “Côte d’Azur du Middle East “.
“A future Palestinian State”
Donald Trump had already aroused international outrage by proposing to “simply clean up” in the Gaza Strip and transfer its inhabitants to “safer” places such as Egypt or Jordan.
He must receive in the week the King of Jordan, who rejects “any attempt” of the Palestinians’ trip, and has already maintained himself on the phone with the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah al-Sissi. Egypt, a border of Gaza, called on Wednesday the Palestinian authority, led by Mahmoud Abbas, to regain control of the territory, from where it had been driven out in 2007 when Hamas took power. Cairo has also pleaded for rapid reconstruction, “without the Palestinians leaving the Gaza Strip”.
Turkey has also found “unacceptable” the project to move the population of Gaza. Saudi Arabia said that it will “continue without respite for a Palestinian State” stressing that it “will not establish diplomatic relations with Israel without it”.
For France, the future of Gaza goes through “a future Palestinian State” and not by control “a third country”. For London, the Palestinians must be able to “live and prosper” in Gaza and in the West Bank. Gaza “belongs to the Palestinians”, said Berlin to the words of Donald Trump, while the UN recalled that international law strictly prohibits any forced transfer or expulsion of the population of an occupied territory
In Israel, the far -right minister Bezalel Smotrich promised this Wednesday to do everything to “definitively bury” the idea of a Palestinian state.