Trump Reiterates Wish to Move Gazans to Egypt, Jordan 

Internally displaced Palestinians make their way from southern to northern Gaza along al-Rashid road, central Gaza Strip, 27 January 2025. (EPA)
Internally displaced Palestinians make their way from southern to northern Gaza along al-Rashid road, central Gaza Strip, 27 January 2025. (EPA)
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Trump Reiterates Wish to Move Gazans to Egypt, Jordan 

Internally displaced Palestinians make their way from southern to northern Gaza along al-Rashid road, central Gaza Strip, 27 January 2025. (EPA)
Internally displaced Palestinians make their way from southern to northern Gaza along al-Rashid road, central Gaza Strip, 27 January 2025. (EPA)

US President Donald Trump on Monday reiterated his desire to move Palestinians from Gaza to "safer" locations such as Egypt or Jordan, and said he would meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington "very soon."

The president on Saturday floated the idea to "clean out" Gaza after more than 15 months of war between Israel and Hamas had reduced the Palestinian territory to a "demolition site."

Asked about those comments, Trump told reporters Monday evening on Air Force One he would "like to get them living in an area where they can live without disruption and revolution and violence so much."

"You know, when you look at the Gaza Strip, it's been hell for so many years... there's always been violence associated with it," he said.

When pressed on what that would mean for a two-state solution, he said he would be meeting with Netanyahu "in the not too distant future."

"He's coming here to meet with me," he said.

Trump has also held talks in recent days with Jordan's King Abdullah II and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who have historically opposed displacing Palestinians.

A senior Egyptian source denied on Tuesday that any such talks between Trump and Sisi had taken place.

Almost all of the Gaza Strip's 2.4 million inhabitants have been displaced by the war provoked by Hamas's attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

A ceasefire underway is due to last six weeks, allowing the release of 33 hostages held in Gaza against some 1,900 Palestinian prisoners.

During this first phase, the terms of the second phase are to be negotiated, with the aim of freeing the last hostages and bringing the war to a definitive end.

The final stage will involve the reconstruction of Gaza and the return of the bodies of the last hostages who died in captivity.

Former president Joe Biden's administration drew up a series of plans for the post-war period in Gaza, but Trump has so far made no mention of them.



UNRWA Lebanon Says Not Impacted by US Aid Freeze or New Israeli Law

 Head of UNRWA in Lebanon Dorothee Klaus speaks during a press conference in her offices in Beirut, Lebanon January 29, 2025. (Reuters)
Head of UNRWA in Lebanon Dorothee Klaus speaks during a press conference in her offices in Beirut, Lebanon January 29, 2025. (Reuters)
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UNRWA Lebanon Says Not Impacted by US Aid Freeze or New Israeli Law

 Head of UNRWA in Lebanon Dorothee Klaus speaks during a press conference in her offices in Beirut, Lebanon January 29, 2025. (Reuters)
Head of UNRWA in Lebanon Dorothee Klaus speaks during a press conference in her offices in Beirut, Lebanon January 29, 2025. (Reuters)

The director of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon said on Wednesday that the agency had not been affected by US President Donald Trump's halt to US foreign aid funding or by an Israeli ban on its operations.

"UNRWA currently is not receiving any US funding so there is no direct impact of the more recent decisions related to the UN system for UNRWA," Dorothee Klaus told reporters at UNRWA's field office in Lebanon.

US funding to UNRWA was suspended last year until March 2025 under a deal reached by US lawmakers and after Israel accused 12 of the agency's 13,000 employees in Gaza of participating in the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack that triggered the Gaza war.

The UN has said it had fired nine UNRWA staff who may have been involved and said it would investigate all accusations made.

Klaus said that UNRWA Lebanon had also placed four staff members on administrative leave as it investigated allegations they had breached the UN principle of neutrality.

One UNRWA teacher had already been suspended last year and a Hamas commander in Lebanon - killed in September in an Israeli strike - was found to have had an UNRWA job.

Klaus also said there was "no direct impact" on the agency's Lebanon operations from a new Israeli law banning UNRWA operations in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and that "UNRWA will continue fully operating in Lebanon."

The law, adopted in October, bans UNRWA's operation on Israeli land - including East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed in a move not recognized internationally - and contact with Israeli authorities from Jan. 30.

UNRWA provides aid, health and education services to millions in the Palestinian territories and neighboring Arab countries of Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.

Its commissioner general Philippe Lazzarini said on Tuesday that UNRWA has been the target of a "fierce disinformation campaign" to "portray the agency as a terrorist organization."