Trump: Egypt and Jordan Will Take in Palestinians from Gaza

President Donald Trump calls on a reporter to ask a question in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
President Donald Trump calls on a reporter to ask a question in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
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Trump: Egypt and Jordan Will Take in Palestinians from Gaza

President Donald Trump calls on a reporter to ask a question in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
President Donald Trump calls on a reporter to ask a question in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

US President Donald Trump insisted Thursday that Egypt and Jordan would take in displaced Gazans, despite the two Arab nations dismissing his plan to move Palestinians from the territory.

Trump's comments came a day after Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Jordan's King Abdullah II rejecting any forced displacement of Gazans following the war between Hamas and Israel.

“They will do it,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office when asked for his response to the Egyptian and Jordanian refusal, and whether he would consider imposing tariffs on either country to push them.

“They're going to do it. We do a lot for them, and they're going to do it.”

After an Israel-Hamas ceasefire took effect on January 19, Trump last week floated a plan to “clean out” the Gaza Strip and for Palestinians to move to “safer” locations such as Egypt or Jordan.

Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff made a rare trip to Gaza this week, the White House said, in a bid to prop up the fragile ceasefire.

He also met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Sisi had said on Wednesday in his first public response to Trump's comments that displacing “the Palestinian people from their land is an injustice that we cannot take part in.”

King Abdullah II separately stressed his country's “firm position on the need to keep the Palestinians on their land.”

Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023, both Egypt and Jordan have warned of plans to displace Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank across their borders.



Israel’s Spy Chief Gives Details about Exploding Pager Operation against Hezbollah

A photo taken on September 18, 2024, in Beirut's southern suburbs shows the remains of exploded pagers on display at an undisclosed location. (AFP/Getty Images)
A photo taken on September 18, 2024, in Beirut's southern suburbs shows the remains of exploded pagers on display at an undisclosed location. (AFP/Getty Images)
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Israel’s Spy Chief Gives Details about Exploding Pager Operation against Hezbollah

A photo taken on September 18, 2024, in Beirut's southern suburbs shows the remains of exploded pagers on display at an undisclosed location. (AFP/Getty Images)
A photo taken on September 18, 2024, in Beirut's southern suburbs shows the remains of exploded pagers on display at an undisclosed location. (AFP/Getty Images)

The head of Israel's Mossad foreign intelligence agency on Tuesday called the exploding pagers and walkie talkies operation against Hezbollah members in Lebanon and Syria a “turning point of the war,” which gave Israel momentum to deal a heavy blow to Hezbollah.

The devices used by hundreds of Hezbollah members exploded almost simultaneously in two waves on Sept. 17 and 18. The attack killed at least 12 people — including two young children — and wounded thousands more.

Mossad chief David Barnea spoke while accepting an award for the operation from a Tel Aviv think tank, the Institute for National Security Studies.

Barnea said the first 500 pagers outfitted with explosives arrived in Lebanon just a few weeks before the war in Gaza began on Oct. 7, 2023, but that officials involved in the operation decided to wait to detonate them until more pagers had arrived and were in use.

He said the operation involving the walkie talkies with explosives started more than a decade ago, while the pager operation began in 2022.