Gaza Strip: US President Donald Trump has floated a plan to “clean out” Gaza and sending its residents to Egypt and Jordan, even as he revoked a ban on the shipment of 2,000-lb bombs to Israel.Trump called Gaza a “demolition site” and said he had spoken to Jordan’s King Abdullah II about moving Palestinians out of the territory.“I’d like Egypt to take people. And I’d like Jordan to take people,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, adding that he expected to talk to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi soon.For Palestinians, any attempt to move them from Gaza would evoke dark historical memories of what the Arab world calls the “Nakba” or catastrophe — the mass displacement during Israel’s creation 75 years ago.“I’d rather get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing at a different location where they can maybe live in peace for a change,” Trump said, adding that moving Gaza’s inhabitants could be “temporarily or even long term”.Egypt has previously warned against any “forced displacement” of Palestinians from Gaza into the Sinai desert, which Sisi said could jeopardise the peace treaty Egypt signed with Israel in 1979.Jordan is already home to around 2.3 million registered Palestinian refugees, according to the UN.Israel and Hamas entered into a truce deal on January 19 that saw four Israeli hostages and around 200 Palestinian prisoners released.Trump’s new administration has promised “unwavering support” for Israel. He confirmed on Saturday he had ordered the Pentagon to release a shipment of 2,000-lb bombs for Israel which was blocked by his predecessor Joe Biden.“A lot of things that were ordered and paid for by Israel, but have not been sent by Biden, are now on their way!” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform.Biden had warned that use of these munitions would cause “great human tragedy and damage”.During his first Presidential term, Trump repeatedly boasted that Israel “never had a better friend in the White House,” a sentiment often echoed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Meanwhile, Israel and Hamas completed their second hostage-prisoner swap under the ceasefire deal on Saturday, a last-minute dispute blocked the expected return of hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians to the Gaza Strip.Israel announced it would block Palestinians’ passage to the north until a civilian woman hostage who the prime minister’s office said “was supposed to be released” on Saturday walks free.A Hamas source told AFP that the woman, Arbel Yehud, will be “released as part of the third swap set for next Saturday”.A total of seven hostages and 289 Palestinians have so far been released.The truce has brought a surge of food, fuel, medicines and other aid into rubble-strewn Gaza, but the UN says “the humanitarian situation remains dire”.Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad reacted with defiance on Sunday to the plan floated by Trump to “clean out” Gaza. There was no immediate reaction from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but a far-right minister welcomed Trump’s “great” idea.Bassem Naim, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, told AFP that Palestinians would “foil such projects”, as they have done to similar plans “for displacement and alternative homelands over the decades”.
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