PLO Rejects Trump Calls for Displacement of Palestinian People, Secretary General Says 

Palestinians stand next to a fire beside a destroyed house in an area littered with rubble from buildings destroyed during the Israeli army's ground and air offensive against Hamas, in Gaza City, Tuesday Feb. 4, 2025.(AP)
Palestinians stand next to a fire beside a destroyed house in an area littered with rubble from buildings destroyed during the Israeli army's ground and air offensive against Hamas, in Gaza City, Tuesday Feb. 4, 2025.(AP)
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PLO Rejects Trump Calls for Displacement of Palestinian People, Secretary General Says 

Palestinians stand next to a fire beside a destroyed house in an area littered with rubble from buildings destroyed during the Israeli army's ground and air offensive against Hamas, in Gaza City, Tuesday Feb. 4, 2025.(AP)
Palestinians stand next to a fire beside a destroyed house in an area littered with rubble from buildings destroyed during the Israeli army's ground and air offensive against Hamas, in Gaza City, Tuesday Feb. 4, 2025.(AP)

Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Secretary General Hussein Sheikh said on Wednesday the PLO rejected all calls for the displacement of the Palestinian people from their homeland, after US President Donald Trump said Palestinians in the Gaza Strip could be resettled in neighboring countries.

"The Palestinian leadership affirms its firm position that the two-state solution, in accordance with international legitimacy and international law, is the guarantee of security, stability and peace," the PLO official said on X.

The PLO is internationally recognized as the official representative of the Palestinian people.

Trump said the US would take over the war-ravaged Gaza Strip and develop it economically after Palestinians are resettled elsewhere, actions that would shatter decades of US policy toward the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Trump unveiled his surprise plan, without providing specifics, at a joint press conference on Tuesday with visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The announcement followed Trump's shock proposal earlier on Tuesday for the permanent resettlement of the more than two million Palestinians from Gaza to neighboring countries, calling the enclave - where the first phase of a fragile Israel-Hamas ceasefire and hostage release deal is in effect - a "demolition site."

Forced displacement of Gaza's population would likely be a violation of international law and would be fiercely opposed not only in the region but also by Washington's Western allies. Some human rights advocates liken the idea to ethnic cleansing.



Israel Says Apprehended Members of Iran-backed Cell in Syria

06 July 2025, Palestinian Territories, Tulkarm: An Israeli soldier enforces a ban as he attempts to enter the Tulkarm refugee camp in the West Bank. Photo: Nasser Ishtayeh/SOPA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
06 July 2025, Palestinian Territories, Tulkarm: An Israeli soldier enforces a ban as he attempts to enter the Tulkarm refugee camp in the West Bank. Photo: Nasser Ishtayeh/SOPA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
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Israel Says Apprehended Members of Iran-backed Cell in Syria

06 July 2025, Palestinian Territories, Tulkarm: An Israeli soldier enforces a ban as he attempts to enter the Tulkarm refugee camp in the West Bank. Photo: Nasser Ishtayeh/SOPA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
06 July 2025, Palestinian Territories, Tulkarm: An Israeli soldier enforces a ban as he attempts to enter the Tulkarm refugee camp in the West Bank. Photo: Nasser Ishtayeh/SOPA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa

Israel's military said Monday it had apprehended members of an Iran-backed cell in southern Syria, the second such operation it has announced in the past week.

Since the December overthrow of Syria's longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad, Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes primarily on military sites and carried out cross-border ground raids.

In a statement, the military said troops "completed an overnight operation to apprehend a cell that was operated by the Iranian Quds Force in the Tel Kudna area of southern Syria."

"For the second time in the past week... troops completed a targeted overnight operation and apprehended several operatives who posed a threat in the area," the statement added.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said Israeli forces raided early Monday a village in the Quneitra countryside of southern Syria and "carried out searches targeting several homes, which ended with the arrest of two brothers".

On Wednesday, Israel's military said its forces had apprehended members of an Iranian-backed "terrorist cell" in southern Syria and seized weapons.