News

February 5, 2025

Palestinian leader rejects Trump’s proposal to take over Gaza

PALESTINIAN-ISRAEL-CONFLICT

Palestinian children sit and wait next to water cans at a school turned shelter in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on February 4, 2025. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)

Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas “strongly rejected” Wednesday his US counterpart Donald Trump’s proposal to “take over” and “own” the Gaza Strip.

“President Mahmud Abbas and the Palestinian leadership expressed their strong rejection of calls to seize the Gaza Strip and displace Palestinians outside their homeland,” Abbas’s office said in a statement, adding that “legitimate Palestinian rights are not negotiable”.

Reading the statement on Palestinian public television, Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina stressed that the Gaza Strip “is an integral part of the State of Palestine”.

The Palestine Liberation Organisation, an alliance of factions headed by Abbas, also condemned Trump’s proposal to relocate Gazans to Egypt or Jordan.

It rejected “all calls for the displacement of Palestinians from their homeland”, its secretary general, Hussein al-Sheikh, said.

AFP