Israel said on Thursday that it had started preparations for large numbers of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip in line with President Donald Trump’s plan to the region. Meanwhile, officials said that Egypt had launched a diplomatic raid behind the scenes to try to go to the plan.
The Trump administration has already described the aspects of the proposal after its extensive rejection at the international level, saying that the transfer of the Palestinians would be temporary. US officials provided few details about how or when the plan will be implemented.
In a post on social media on Thursday, Trump said that Israel would run Gaza to the United States after the conflict and that American soldiers will not be needed for his plan to redevelop it.
The Palestinians strongly rejected Trump’s proposal, fearing that Israel would never allow refugees to return. Egypt has warned that the expulsion of the Palestinians would destabilize the region and undermine the peace treaty with Israel, which is the cornerstone of the American stability and influence for decades.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, another major ally of the United States, also rejected a collective transfer of the Palestinians and says it will not normalize relations with Israel – the main goal of the Trump administration – without establishing a Palestinian state that includes Gaza.
Trump and Israeli officials photographed the proposed transition from Gaza, which was transferred from the conflict as voluntary, but the Palestinians expressed their determination to stay in their homeland.
Trump and the Israeli officials did not say how to respond if the Palestinians refused to leave. But Human Rights Watch and other groups say that the plan, if implemented, will become “ethnic cleansing”, the forced transition of the civilian population of an ethnic group of a geographical area.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said that he ordered the army to conduct preparations to facilitate the migration of large numbers of Palestinians from Gaza through land crossings, as well as “special arrangements to go through the sea and air.”
There were no immediate signs of such preparations on the ground.
Egypt makes a campaign behind the scenes
Egyptian President Abdel Fahia Al -Sisi did not publicly respond to the amazing suggestion of Trump that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents are being transferred and that the United States was responsible for rebuilding the region. The 15 -month Israel campaign against the Hamas militant group was reduced from large parts of Gaza to ruins before the fragile ceasefire was launched last month.
But Egyptian officials, who are speaking on Wednesday, provided that his identity is not disclosed to discuss closed talks, Cairo told the Trump and Israel administration that it will resist any such suggestion, and that the peace deal with Israel – which stood up for nearly half a century – is in danger.
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One of the officials said the message was delivered to the Pentagon, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and members of the US Congress. Another official said he was also transferred to Israel and its Western allies, including Britain, France and Germany.
A Western diplomat in Cairo, who also speaks anonymous because the discussions were not publicly published, and confirmed the receipt of the message from Egypt through multiple channels. The diplomat said that Egypt was very dangerous and looked at the plan as a threat to its national security.
The diplomat said that Egypt rejected similar proposals from the Biden administration and European countries early in the conflict, which was raised by the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023 to southern Israel. The previous proposals were raised individually, while Trump announced his plan at a White House press conference alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
US officials expanded Trump’s proposal
Trump said he wanted to “resettle most of Gaza’s population in other countries and the United States to take over the purification of debris and rebuild Gaza as” the Riviera for the Middle East “for all people. He did not rule out the deployment of American forces there.
It seemed that US officials later followed him, saying that the transfer of the Palestinians would be temporary and that Trump did not commit to putting American shoes on the ground or spending US tax dollars in Gaza.
Egyptian officials said that their government does not believe that the Palestinians need to transfer them to the reconstruction to move forward and commit to establishing a Palestinian state in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which Israel seized in a war in the east of 1967.
The government of Israel opposes the Palestinian state and said it will maintain open security control over Gaza and the occupied West Bank. Israel included East Jerusalem in a move that was not recognized by most of the international community and the entire city is considered its capital.
Last week, Egypt hosted a meeting of senior diplomats from Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates – which was the driving force behind the Ibrahim 2020 agreements that brokered Israel. All five Arab countries refused to move the Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank.
In an editorial on Thursday, the main daily pyramids managed in Egypt warned that “the independence of the Arab countries”, and the unity of their peoples and their regional safety are subjected to severe threat.
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