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13-02-2025
JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatens to resume “intense fighting” in Gaza if Hamas fails to release captives held there by noon on Saturday.
US President Donald Trump tells reporters “we’re going to take” Gaza and urges Jordan’s King Abdullah to allocate land for forcibly displaced Palestinians.
Abdullah says he opposes any displacement of Palestinians and says Arab nations will come to the US with a response to Washington’s takeover plan. Egypt, too, says it will propose a “comprehensive plan” to rebuild Gaza without resettling Palestinians.
Israel’s war on Gaza has killed a confirmed 48,219 people and wounded 111,665, according to the territory’s Health Ministry. Gaza’s Government Media Office has updated the death toll to at least 61,709 people, saying thousands who were missing under the rubble are now presumed dead. At least 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the October 7, 2023 attacks and more than 200 were taken captive.
Jordan’s King Abdullah II has become the first Arab leader to meet Trump in the White House since the US president’s second term began on January 20.
Tuesday’s sit-down with Trump, however, put Abdullah in a delicate situation.
The president again doubled down on his plan for the US to takeover Gaza, and pressed the king to allocate land for forcibly displaced Palestinians.
Abdulla chose to avoid speaking too much in front of the media, and when he did, his language was careful, precise and designed to avoid offence.
When asked whether Jordan would take in Palestinians displaced from Gaza, the Jordanian leader said he would do what was “best” for his country.
In social media posts after the meeting, however, he said that Jordan was “steadfast” in its “position against the displacement of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank”.
Lebanon’s Prime Minister has said solidarity from Arab states is “capable of stopping” plans put forward by US and Israeli leaders to “eliminate the Palestinian state”.
“I find this talk abhorrent,” Nawaf Salam, referring to recent proposals put forward by Trump and Netanyahu calling for “transferring the people of Gaza” to Egypt, Jordan, the West Bank and Saudi Arabia.
Salam, who was until recently the President of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) also said that the plan was “morally, politically, [and] legally” questionable and described it as “a fantasy”.
“How can a Palestinian state be established in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia?” he said, in an interview with state television, according to NNA news.
The first Arab leader to meet Donald Trump since his return to the White House, King Abdullah II is walking a fine line.
Keen not to upset the country which provides most of Jordan’s foreign aid, but not ready to sign on for the mass deportation of Palestinians from Gaza.
Speaking in the Oval Office, Donald Trump, again, pushed his plan for an American redevelopment, minus the Palestinians.
King Abdullah knows there would be huge opposition to something that has been described as ethnic cleansing, and promised a plan is coming, which he hopes will get American support. US President Donald Trump reiterated his plans to take control of Gaza and permanently resettle its residents elsewhere, while hosting Jordan’s King Abdullah at the White House.
King Abdullah, however, opposed any displacement of Palestinians and said Arab nations would come to the US with a response to Washington’s Gaza takeover plan. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
