Arab Foreign Ministers Reject Forced Displacement of Palestinians

The foreign ministers said forced displacement of Palestinians would threaten stability in the region, spread conflict and undermine prospects for peace.

Sat Feb 01 2025
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KEY POINTS

  • Arab foreign ministers reject forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza.
  • The foreign ministers warn that forced displacement would destabilise the region.
  • Arab ministers state they look forward to working with Trump’s administration to achieve a just peace in the Middle East.
  • Foreign ministers categorically reject efforts to bypass or reduce UNRWA’s role.

 

CAIRO, Egypt: Arab foreign ministers on Saturday rejected any forcible displacement of Palestinians from their land under any circumstances, presenting a unified stance against US President Donald Trump’s call for Egypt and Jordan to take in residents of the Gaza Strip.

In a joint statement following a meeting in Cairo, the foreign ministers and officials from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, the Palestinian Authority and the Arab League said forced displacement of Palestinians would threaten stability in the region, spread conflict and undermine prospects for peace.

“We affirm our rejection of [any attempts] to compromise Palestinians’ unalienable rights, whether settlement activities, expulsion, home demolitions, annexation, depopulation of the land of its people through displacement, encouraged transfer or the uprooting of Palestinians from their land,” the joint statement read.

The foreign ministers added that they “look forward to working with the administration of US President Donald Trump to achieve a just and comprehensive peace in the Middle East, in accordance with the two-state solution”.

The meeting included Arab League secretary general Ahmed Aboul Gheit and Hussein al-Sheikh, secretary general of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

The meeting comes after Trump said last week that Egypt and Jordan should take in Palestinians from Gaza, which he called a “demolition site” following 15 months of Israeli bombardment that rendered most of its 2.3 million people homeless.

Critics have called his suggestion tantamount to ethnic cleansing.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi on Wednesday rejected the idea that Egypt would facilitate the displacement of Gazans and said Egyptians would take to the streets to express their disapproval.

Sisi said that the “displacement of the Palestinian people from their land is an injustice that we cannot take part in”.

On Thursday, Trump reiterated the idea, saying: “We do a lot for them, and they are going to do it,” in apparent reference to abundant US aid, including military assistance, to both Egypt and Jordan.

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Jordan is already home to several million Palestinians, while tens of thousands live in Egypt. The foreign ministries of Egypt and Jordan have both rejected Trump’s suggestion in recent days.

The Arab ministers also welcomed Egypt’s plans to hold an international conference with the United Nations that would be focused on rebuilding Gaza, which has been mostly flattened during the 15 months of Israeli bombardments. No date has been set yet for the conference.

Two days after Israel severed all ties with the UN’s main aid agency for Palestinians, UNRWA, the ministers also affirmed the “pivotal, indispensable and irreplaceable role” of the agency, “categorically rejecting any attempts to bypass it or limit its role”.

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