Arab foreign ministers on Saturday rejected the transfer of Palestinians from their land "under any circumstances or justification," presenting a unified stance against US President Donald Trump's call for Egypt and Jordan to accept residents of the Gaza Strip.
In a joint statement after a meeting in Cairo, foreign ministers and officials from Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the Palestinian Authority and the Arab League said they looked forward to working with the Trump administration to achieve a just and comprehensive peace in the Middle East, based on a two-state solution.
“We affirm our rejection of [any attempt] to compromise the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, whether through settlement activities, evictions or land annexation or through the release of land from its owners…in any form or under any circumstances or justification,” the joint statement said.
Achieving peace in the Middle East, the statement says, is based on a two-state solution.
The meeting comes after Trump said last week that Egypt and Jordan should accept Palestinians from Gaza, which he called a “land of destruction” after 15 months of Israeli bombing that has displaced most of its 2.3 million people. Critics have called his suggestion tantamount to ethnic cleansing.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Wednesday rejected the idea that Egypt would facilitate the relocation of Gazans and said Egyptians would take to the streets to express their disapproval. On Thursday, however, Trump reiterated the idea, saying: “We do a lot for them, and they will,” in an apparent reference to the abundant U.S. aid, including military aid, to both Egypt and Jordan.
Any suggestion that Palestinians leave Gaza, the territory they want to form an independent state, has been anathema to the Palestinian leadership for generations and has been repeatedly rejected by neighboring Arab states since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.