As the agreed ceasefire is unfolding, and the Palestinian people begin returning to the north of Gaza only find that the vast majority of homes and infrastructure has turned into rubble, the new US President Trump is proposing an extremely dangerous plan.
The US president has said he wants Gaza’s residents to move to neighbouring countries and that they could be displaced ‘temporarily or could be long term.’[1] Trump has proposed a plan to ‘clean out’ the Gaza Strip and relocate its residents to Jordan and Egypt. The PRC strongly condemns the language of ‘cleaning’ the population out of Gaza as a classic terminology adopted by ethnic cleansers to justify genocidal expulsions.
While Jordan and Egypt have already announced that they will not accept this dangerous proposal, there is a real possibility that this plan will be enforced on the Palestinian population.[2] One key justification being resorted to is that this provides a ‘humanitarian solution’ that relieves the suffering of displaced Palestinians.[3] We have seen this argument at the start of the genocide at the end of 2023 and it is being reasserted in Israel’s newspapers in this moment to justify the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.
In light of the inflammatory remarks and highly dangerous plan US president Trump is proposing, the Palestinian Return Centre affirms the steadfastness of Palestinian refugees to refuse any such imposition that will jeopardize their national aspirations and necessity to free themselves from colonial domination. The PRC calls on international governments, institutions and civil society to speak out and take concrete measures to oppose this plan that would have catastrophic consequences on the Palestinian people.
-------------------
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/28/trump-repeats-suggestion-palestinians-should-leave-gaza-for-egypt-and-jordan
[2] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/29/egypts-el-sisi-rejects-trumps-suggestion-to-take-in-palestinians
[3] https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-839694