Egypt tells top US diplomat Rubio that Arab states reject Trump’s Gaza plan

Egyptian foreign minister Badr Abdelatty told US secretary of state Marco Rubio on Monday that Arab states rejected US President Donald Trump's widely condemned plan to displace Palestinians in Gaza and take control of the enclave.

Egypt's foreign ministry said Abdelatty, in a meeting in Washington, stressed the importance of expediting Gaza's reconstruction while Palestinians remained there.

A statement by the US state department after the meeting did not explicitly mention Trump's plan, but said Rubio “reiterated the importance of close cooperation to advance post-conflict planning for the governance and security of Gaza and stressed Hamas can never govern Gaza or threaten Israel again”.

Abdelatty said he was looking forward to working with the new US administration to achieve “comprehensive and just peace and stability” in the region, according to the Egyptian foreign ministry statement.

He also met with US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff in a separate meeting, where he echoed similar statements, the foreign ministry said.

Any suggestion that Palestinians leave Gaza, which they want as part of an independent state, has been anathema to the Palestinian leadership for generations, and neighbouring Arab states have rejected it since the Israel-Gaza war began in October 2023.

Trump suggested on January 25 that Egypt and Jordan should take in Palestinians from Gaza. He later proposed a US takeover of Gaza and the potential permanent displacement of Palestinians from the enclave with no right of return.

Trump's comments echoed long-standing Palestinian fears of being permanently driven from their homes and have been labelled by rights advocates and the UN as a proposal for  ethnic cleansing.

Israel's military assault on Gaza, paused by a fragile ceasefire, has killed more than 47,000 Palestinians in the past 16 months, the Gaza health ministry said, and provoked accusations of genocide and war crimes that Israel denies.

The assault internally displaced nearly all of Gaza's population and caused a hunger crisis.

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 250 hostages, Israeli tallies show.

Reuters