President Donald Trump doubles down on plan to empty Gaza. This is what he has said and what's at stake
Trump doubled down this week on his vows to empty Gaza permanently of its more than 2 million Palestinians, saying they would not be allowed to return and suggesting at one point he might force Egypt and Jordan to take them in by threatening to cut off U.S. aid.
Whether it's serious, a negotiating tactic or a distraction, Palestinians have roundly rejected the idea of leaving. Some say Trump's talk normalizes their erasure and dehumanization, amplifying the idea that they have no connection to their land or right to their homes.
'He is talking as if the Palestinians are cattle, you can move them from one place to another. They have no agency, they have no say,' said Munir Nuseibah, a professor of international law at Jerusalem's Al-Quds University.
The plan
Trump has billed the plan as being for the Palestinians' own benefit after Israel's 16-month campaign demolished entire neighborhoods and left much of Gaza unlivable. In its place, Trump has promised them a 'beautiful new land' elsewhere.
The United States would then take over the territory and rebuild it as a 'Riviera' for the 'world's people.'
Palestinians have made clear they don't want to leave Gaza, one part of their homeland that remains for them, along with pockets of the West Bank, after the Mideast's 1948 and 1967 wars. Despite Gaza's devastation, Palestinians have shown a determination to stay and rebuild with international help promised in the U.S.-brokered ceasefire with Israel.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict in many ways is rooted in the 1948 war surrounding Israel's creation — during which hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled from or forced to flee their homes in what is now Israel — and the 1967 war, when Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza. Palestinians want those territories for a future state.
The ambiguity
Trump has left it ambiguous how Palestinians would be removed or what would happen if they refused to go.
Asked by reporters at the White House on Monday if the U.S. would force Palestinians out, Trump replied: 'You're going to see that they're all going to want to leave.'
At one point, he said a rebuilt Gaza would be a place for anyone — possibly including Palestinians — to live, and administration officials have said Palestinians' removal would be temporary.
But Trump contradicted that in an interview with Fox News Channel that aired Monday. Asked whether Palestinians would have the right to return to Gaza, he replied: 'No, they wouldn't because they're going to have much better housing. In other words, I'm talking about building a permanent place for them.'
In a post Thursday on his Truth Social site, Trump said Israel would turn over Gaza to the U.S. 'at the conclusion of fighting.' By that time, he wrote, all the Palestinians 'would have already been resettled in far safer and more beautiful communities.'
Resettled how? Trump hasn't said.
Fighting in Gaza has been paused a ceasefire. There are fears Israel could renew its campaign to destroy Hamas if the two sides can't reach an agreement over a second phase of the deal, including the big question of how Gaza will be governed.
The ceasefire is already precarious after Hamas accused Israel of violating the truce and said it would pause releases of hostages. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu then threatened to withdraw from the deal if the militant group does not release more hostages on Saturday.
Forced displacement?
With Palestinians refusing to go, Trump's ambiguity raises fears they would be forced to.
Calls for a mass transfer of Palestinians were once relegated to the fringes of political discourse in Israel.
But the idea has gained traction in the mainstream — the result of frustration from years of failed peace efforts, recurring rounds of violence, and the painful images of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack that triggered the current war. Israeli leaders have talked of 'voluntary' migration.
The Geneva Conventions forbid 'mass forcible transfers' from occupied lands 'regardless of their motive.' The International Criminal Court — where the U.S and Israel are not members — also holds that 'forcible transfer' can be a war crime or, in some circumstances, a crime against humanity.
Forcible transfer was among the crimes that Nazi leaders were charged with in the Nuremberg trials after World War II. It was also among the acts for which some Bosnian Serb leaders were convicted by a U.N. tribunal over atrocities during the 1990s Balkan wars.
Adam Coogle, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East & North Africa Division, said he didn't know if Trump's statements would turn into policy, 'but the statement of intent is very concerning.'
'The moving out of the entire Palestinian population, any movement of a people in occupied territory out of that territory, is forced displacement,' he said. If done with intent, he said, it could be a war crime.
Amnesty International echoed that, saying forcibly expelling Palestinians is a war crime and could be a crime against humanity.
Nuseibah pointed to rulings by the U.N. court for the former Yugoslavia and other international bodies saying that 'any type of pressure or duress' to leave constitutes forcible transfer.
'It doesn't have to be at gunpoint,' he said.
Asked by a reporter Tuesday about criticism that moving Palestinians out of Gaza could be 'ethnic cleansing,' Trump did not directly answer, repeating that they would go to 'a beautiful location, where they will have new homes and can live safely.'
The White House pointed to those comments when asked specifically about the potential that the permanent relocation of Palestinians is a war crime.
The response
Many Palestinians have been staggered that Trump takes it on himself to speak on their behalf.
'Why don't they just ask us what we want?' said Nuseibah. 'It is dehumanizing.'
Raji Sourani, a leading rights lawyer from Gaza, said Trump's stance was 'Kafkaesque.'
'This is the first time ever in history that the president of the United States speaks publicly and frankly to commit one of the most serious crimes,' said Sourani, who left Gaza for Egypt after Israeli airstrikes destroyed his home in the early days of the war.
Sourani accused Trump of aiming to 'complete the genocide' he said was begun by Israel.
The International Court of Justice is considering arguments that Israel's campaign in Gaza constitutes genocide. Israel denies the accusation, saying it is acting in self-defense to destroy Hamas.
As proof of their commitment to stay, Palestinians point to the flood of hundreds of thousands of people returning to homes in Gaza under the ceasefire — even to ones that were destroyed.
On Monday, Hatem Mohammed set up a tarp to shelter his family from a cold rain on the ruins of their destroyed home. Their home lies in the so-called Netzarim corridor, a strip of land where troops leveled large areas to create a closed military zone during the war, before their withdrawal over the weekend.
'This is our land, this is our identity and that of our fathers and grandfathers,' Mohammed said. 'Trump wants to deny our identity. No, our identity remains.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
12 minutes ago
- Yahoo
No arrests made at anti-Trump demonstrations, police say
No protesters were arrested at demonstrations about US President Donald Trump after he began a visit to Scotland, according to police. A 50-year-old woman was issued with a recorded police warning in connection with alleged threatening behaviour at a Stop Trump Scotland protest outside the US consulate in Edinburgh on Saturday, but no arrests were made, according to Police Scotland. In Glasgow, a woman aged 49 was arrested at a 'mass deportation rally' led by Ukip's Nick Tenconi, which was met by a counter-protest in George Square. The woman, who was a counter-protester, was arrested in connection with an alleged obstruction of the police and a report will be submitted to the procurator fiscal. Police Scotland said two arrests were made in Aberdeen at 'other events' on Saturday, but not at a huge anti-Trump demonstration in the city. A spokesperson said the force 'took action at demonstrations and protest events' but did not make any arrests at Trump rallies across the country. In Aberdeen, an 18-year-old man was arrested in connection with a number of outstanding warrants and will appear in court at a later date, according to Police Scotland. A 56-year-old man will be the subject of a report to the procurator fiscal after an alleged assault in Aberdeen city centre. Police Scotland said they could not give further details.
Epoch Times
14 minutes ago
- Epoch Times
What to Know About Aid Access to Gaza
Twenty-one months into the Israeli offensive launched after the Oct. 7 attack by terrorist group Hamas, the situation on the ground in Gaza has become one of the most complex and contested crises.
Yahoo
17 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump administration pushes states to exclude immigrant students from in-state tuition
Texas let undocumented young people qualify for in-state college tuition for 24 years. President Donald Trump convinced the state to unravel the policy in a matter of hours. Since returning to the White House, Trump's Justice Department has launched legal challenges against laws in Texas, Kentucky and Minnesota that allow undocumented students to pay the tuition rate reserved for state residents. That price can often be half of what out-of-state students are responsible for. Discounting tuition for undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children has a long bipartisan history. Texas' law was signed by Republican then-Gov. Rick Perry and 23 red and blue states, plus the District of Columbia, followed, a political mood that's now reversing: Florida repealed its 2014 in-state tuition law this February. There are about 408,000 undocumented students representing less than 2 percent of those in college. The Justice Department argues these tuition laws unfairly offer a benefit to foreigners that is unavailable to U.S. citizens and legal residents living in a neighboring state. The legal offensive to roll back these laws, which is poised to spread, serves as another sign of how thoroughly the second Trump administration is going about enacting the president's promise to discourage illegal immigration and promote 'self-deportation.' 'This was something that used to not be political,' Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, said of the in-state tuition policies for undocumented students. 'It was the idea that if this is the only country you've ever known, that more than likely you will be here your entire life, and we should want you to be educated and productive.' But Kentucky's Republican attorney general, Russell Coleman, sided with Trump this summer, urging the state's council on postsecondary education to 'withdraw its regulation rather than litigate what I believe will be, and should be, a losing fight.' Texas, the first state the DOJ targeted with a lawsuit this year, ended its policy in coordination with the White House. The maneuver came after Attorney General Ken Paxton entered into a joint motion with the Justice Department, agreeing that providing in-state tuition to undocumented students wasn't constitutional. 'In-state tuition for illegal immigrants in Texas has ended,' Republican Gov. Greg Abbott wrote in a post on X last month. The policies are crumbling at a time when college enrollment — and the tuition dollars it brings in — fell about 15 percent between 2010 and 2021, according to the National Center for Education Statistics' most recent report. The math is also looking complicated for many schools because the State Department could impose restrictions on international student enrollment, and there is an overall decline in the number of high school seniors. But the Trump administration said states have created laws that favor undocumented students over U.S. citizens. 'Under federal law, schools cannot provide benefits to illegal aliens that they do not provide to U.S. citizens,' Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement to POLITICO. 'The Justice Department will relentlessly fight to vindicate federal law and ensure that U.S. citizens are not treated like second-class citizens anywhere in the country.' About 119,000 undocumented students are protected under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program, which spurred in-state tuition laws for these students and received bipartisan support for years. Now, many Republicans are turning against such policies. Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) introduced the Florida bill in December that eventually ended the tuition break while serving in the state Legislature. He said the laws Trump is challenging amount to incentives for immigrants to cross the border. 'It's immoral to give in-state tuition to someone who shouldn't even be in America,' Fine said in an interview. 'Think about it. A Georgian who wants to go to Florida State is paying more to go to a Florida institution than a foreigner. It's just not right to do and that's why we cleaned it up in Florida. It's time for illegals to go home.' The Florida repeal took effect in July, prompting concern from education advocates who say the legislation could result in Florida institutions losing nearly $15 million in tuition and fees from potential drops in enrollment. In Texas, advocates say more than $461 million annually is at stake. 'What I know for certain is that a significant number of students are living with anxiety,' said Manuel Gonzalez, vice chair of the Austin Community College Board of Trustees, which is suing over Trump's challenge against Texas. 'Not just about how they're going to afford college, but how are they going to navigate an increasingly more hostile political climate that often vilifies their existence.' The National Immigration Law Center, alongside a host of organizations including the ACLU of Texas and Democracy Forward, are seeking to defend the Texas policy, challenging both the outcome and the process that led the state to gut its law. Education advocates argue that making college more expensive is hardly a deterrent for undocumented immigrants looking for a better life for their families. 'Nobody from Guatemala or Mexico starts googling and thinking, 'What state should I move to so that after my child finishes their education, they'll be able to get in-state tuition to a college?'' said Gaby Pacheco, president of The which advocates for DACA students' college education. The policies remain alive in more than 20 states, including California, New York, Kentucky and Minnesota, but opposition from Republicans is rising. A bill to block 'undocumented noncitizens' from accessing Minnesota's North Star Promise program, which makes college tuition free for state residents whose families make less than $80,000 a year, moved through the statehouse during the previous legislative session. Roughly 500 students a year qualify for in-state tuition in Minnesota under the state's Dream Act. The Trump administration's challenges stem from the president's April executive order that directed agencies to crack down on policies that benefit undocumented people and deemed in-state tuition laws illegal. On Wednesday, the Education Department announced five new probes into University of Louisville, University of Nebraska Omaha, University of Miami, University of Michigan and Western Michigan University, arguing that their scholarships for undocumented students are discriminatory. If Kentucky and Minnesota fold alongside Texas, other states could be vulnerable to the administration's efforts, immigration experts fear. 'Just as Texas was the first state to pass a Dream Act in 2001, later inspiring 23 other states and the District of Columbia to pass similar laws, this wrongful and undemocratic repeal of the law is now being pushed as a blueprint to undemocratically end in-state tuition, militarize college campuses and persecute students in other states,' Juan Jose Martinez-Guevara, Texas advocacy manager of the nonprofit United We Dream, said at a Tuesday press conference. Immigration advocates say there is supposed to be a legal carveout specifically for DACA students that allows them to pay in-state tuition rates, but confusion over the law has some Texas colleges charging those students the out-of-state rates. A DOJ spokesperson declined to comment on whether DACA students should be considered exempt. The number of DACA students is dwindling — both because of the program's 2007 arrival cutoff and legal challenges from the first Trump administration and others seeking to end it — but the president's actions could have long-lasting consequences, political analysts say. Trump's legal challenges contradict earlier promises to 'work with the Democrats on a plan' — as he noted in December — for Dreamers. That dissonance might cost Republicans some of the votes Trump received in 2024, particularly from independents and Hispanic Americans, said Brendan Steinhauser, an Austin-based political consultant who's worked with Texas Republicans such as Sen. John Cornyn and Rep. Dan Crenshaw. 'He definitely did really, really well with Hispanic Americans, especially in South Texas and other places,' Steinhauser said. 'But he's not running for reelection. So, he may just think, well, it doesn't matter what his approval numbers are.' Steinhauser also insisted the president's legal challenges are in line with his larger crackdown on immigration. 'It's symbolic, yes, but it's all real,' he said. 'And it's having an impact, I believe, in the same way that these raids are having an impact on incentives.' Elena Schneider contributed to this report. Solve the daily Crossword
