Trump’s Palestinian refugee idea falls flat with Jordan and confounds a Senate ally

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stands with U.S. President Donald Trump after signing the Abraham Accords, normalizing relations between Israel and some of its Middle East neighbors, in a strategic realignment of Middle Eastern countries against Iran, on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, U.S., September 15, 2020. (REUTERS)
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stands with U.S. President Donald Trump after signing the Abraham Accords, normalizing relations between Israel and some of its Middle East neighbors, in a strategic realignment of Middle Eastern countries against Iran, on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, U.S., September 15, 2020. (REUTERS)
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Updated 27 January 2025
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Trump’s Palestinian refugee idea falls flat with Jordan and confounds a Senate ally

Trump’s Palestinian refugee idea falls flat with Jordan and confounds a Senate ally
  • Egypt and Jordan have made peace with Israel but support the creation of a Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, territories that Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast War
  • Both Egypt and Jordan also have perpetually struggling economies and their governments, as well as those of other Arab states, fear massive destabilization of their own countries and the region from any such influx of refugees

DORAL, Florida: President Donald Trump’s push to have Egypt and Jordan take in large numbers of Palestinian refugees from besieged Gaza fell flat with those countries’ governments and left a key congressional ally in Washington perplexed on Sunday.
Fighting that broke out in the territory after ruling Hamas attacked Israel in October 2023 is paused due to a fragile ceasefire, but much of Gaza’s population has been left largely homeless by an Israeli military campaign. Trump told reporters Saturday aboard Air Force One that moving some 1.5 million people away from Gaza might mean that “we just clean out that whole thing.”
Trump relayed what he told Jordan’s King Abdullah when the two held a call earlier Saturday: “I said to him, ‘I’d love for you to take on more because I’m looking at the whole Gaza Strip right now, and it’s a mess.’”
He said he was making a similar appeal to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi during a conversation they were having while Trump was at his Doral resort in Florida on Sunday. Trump said he would “like Egypt to take people and I’d like Jordan to take people.”
Egypt and Jordan, along with the Palestinians, worry that Israel would never allow them to return to Gaza once they have left. Both Egypt and Jordan also have perpetually struggling economies and their governments, as well as those of other Arab states, fear massive destabilization of their own countries and the region from any such influx of refugees.
Jordan already is home to more than 2 million Palestinian refugees. Egypt has warned of the security implications of transferring large numbers of Palestinians to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, bordering Gaza.
Trump suggested that resettling most of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million could be temporary or long term.
Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, said Sunday that his country’s opposition to what Trump floated was “firm and unwavering.” Some Israel officials had raised the idea early in the war.
Egypt’s foreign minister issued a statement saying that the temporary or long-term transfer of Palestinians “risks expanding the conflict in the region.”
Trump does have leverage to wield over Jordan, which is a debt-strapped, but strategically important, US ally and is heavily dependent on foreign aid. The US is historically the single-largest provider of that aid, including more than $1.6 billion through the State Department in 2023.
Much of that comes as support for Jordan’s security forces and direct budget support.
Jordan in return has been a vital regional partner to the US in trying to help keep the region stable. Jordan hosts some 3,000 US troops. Yet, on Friday, new Secretary of State Marco Rubio exempted security assistance to Israel and Egypt but not to Jordan, when he laid out the details of a freeze on foreign assistance that Trump ordered on his first day in office.
Meantime, in the United States, even Trump loyalists tried to make sense of his words.
“I really don’t know,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, when asked on CNN’s “State of the Union” about what Trump meant by the ”clean out” remark. Graham, who is close to Trump, said the suggestion was not feasible.
“The idea that all the Palestinians are going to leave and go somewhere else, I don’t see that to be overly practical,” said Graham, R-S.C. He said Trump should keep talking to Mideast leaders, including Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and officials in the United Arab Emirates.
“I don’t know what he’s talking about. But go talk to MBS, go talk to UAE, go talk to Egypt,” Graham said. “What is their plan for the Palestinians? Do they want them all to leave?”
Trump, a staunch supporter of Israel, also announced Saturday that he had directed the US to release a supply of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel. Former President Joe Biden had imposed a hold due to concerns about their effects on Gaza’s civilian population.
Egypt and Jordan have made peace with Israel but support the creation of a Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, territories that Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast War. They fear that the permanent displacement of Gaza’s population could make that impossible.
In making his case for such a massive population shift, Trump said Gaza is “literally a demolition site right now.”
“I’d rather get involved with some of the Arab nations, and build housing in a different location,” he said of people displaced in Gaza. “Where they can maybe live in peace for a change.”
 

 


Blast in Syria coastal city kills three: state media

Blast in Syria coastal city kills three: state media
Updated 4 min 37 sec ago
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Blast in Syria coastal city kills three: state media

Blast in Syria coastal city kills three: state media
  • "The blast in the Al-Rimal neighbourhood of Latakia city has so far resulted in three deaths and 12 injured," SANA said
  • "Civil defence teams and residents are still searching for others injured and missing"

DAMASCUS: A blast in the Syrian coastal city of Latakia killed at least three people on Saturday, state media reported, with a war monitor saying it was triggered by unexploded ordnance.
"The blast in the Al-Rimal neighbourhood of Latakia city has so far resulted in three deaths and 12 injured," state news agency SANA said citing provincial authorities.
It added that "civil defence teams and residents are still searching for others injured and missing".
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor later described the blast as an "accident" resulting from a resident's attempt to dismantle unexploded ordnance in the building.
A resident of the city, Ward Jammoul, 32, told AFP that she heard a "loud blast", adding that she "headed to the site and found a completely destroyed building".
She said civil defence personnel and ambulances were present at the site, alongside "a large number of people who had gathered to look for those trapped under the rubble".
An image carried by SANA showed a large plume of smoke rising over a populated neighbourhood.
A report by non-governmental organisation Humanity and Inclusion had warned last month of the dangers posed by unexploded munitions left over from the devastating civil war that erupted in 2011.
It said experts estimated that between 100,000 and 300,000 of the roughly one million munitions used during the war had never detonated.


Hamas says it will only release American-Israeli hostage if truce agreement is implemented

Hamas says it will only release American-Israeli hostage if truce agreement is implemented
Updated 15 March 2025
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Hamas says it will only release American-Israeli hostage if truce agreement is implemented

Hamas says it will only release American-Israeli hostage if truce agreement is implemented
  • A senior Hamas official said long-delayed talks over the ceasefire’s second phase would need to begin the day of the release and last no longer than 50 days
  • Hamas would also demand the release of more Palestinian prisoners in exchange for hostages

CAIRO: Hamas said Saturday it will only release an American-Israeli and the bodies of four other hostages if Israel implements their ceasefire agreement, calling it an “exceptional deal” aimed at getting the truce back on track.
A senior Hamas official said long-delayed talks over the ceasefire’s second phase would need to begin the day of the release and last no longer than 50 days. Israel would also need to stop barring the entry of humanitarian aid and withdraw from a strategic corridor along Gaza’s border with Egypt.
Hamas would also demand the release of more Palestinian prisoners in exchange for hostages, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door talks.
Edan Alexander, 21, who grew up in Tenafly, New Jersey, was abducted from his military base during Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack that ignited the war, and is the last living American citizen held in Gaza. Hamas still has a total of 59 hostages, 35 of whom are believed to be dead.
Two Israeli airstrikes in the northern town of Beit Lahiya near the border killed at least nine people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Fares Awad, a local health official, identified one of the dead as local reporter Mahmoud Islim, who was operating a drone.
The Israeli military said it struck two people operating a drone that it said posed a threat to soldiers in the area. It said it launched another strike at a group of people who came to collect the drone equipment. The army identified all of those targeted as suspected militants, without providing evidence.
There has been no major fighting since the ceasefire took hold on Jan. 19, but Israeli strikes have killed dozens of Palestinians who the military said had entered unauthorized areas, engaged in militant activities or otherwise violated the truce.
Israel has cast doubt on Hamas’ offer
There was no immediate comment on Hamas’ offer from Israel, where government offices were closed for the weekly Sabbath. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office on Friday accused Hamas of “psychological warfare” after the initial offer, before the militant group spelled out the conditions.
The United States said it presented on Wednesday a proposal to extend the ceasefire a few more weeks as the sides negotiate a permanent truce. It said Hamas was claiming flexibility in public while privately making “entirely impractical” demands.
Negotiations continued in Egypt after senior Hamas leader Khalil Al-Hayya arrived in Cairo on Friday. Egypt and Qatar served as key mediators with Hamas in reaching the ceasefire and have continued to host talks aimed at getting it back on track.
Under the ceasefire agreement reached in January, Israel and Hamas were to begin negotiations over a second phase — in which Hamas would release all the remaining hostages in exchange for a lasting truce — in early February, but so far only preparatory talks have been held.
After the first phase ended at the beginning of this month, Israel said it had agreed to a new US proposal in which Hamas would release half the remaining hostages in return for a vague commitment to negotiate a lasting ceasefire. Hamas rejected that offer, accusing Israel of backtracking on the signed agreement and trying to sabotage the truce.
Palestinian official says no fuel left for water wells
Israel has barred the delivery of food, fuel and other supplies to Gaza’s roughly 2 million Palestinians, and cut electricity to the territory, to pressure Hamas to accept the new proposal.
The city of Rafah, on the Gaza-Egypt border, said it could no longer provide fuel needed to pump water from dozens of wells across the city.
Ahmed Al-Sufi, head of the municipality, said fuel shortages caused by the Israeli siege have forced it to “suspend essential services, threatening the lives of thousands and exacerbating the health and environmental crisis.”
The first phase of the truce saw the release of 25 Israeli hostages and the bodies of eight more in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. Israeli forces pulled back to a buffer zone along Gaza’s border and allowed a surge of humanitarian aid.
An Israeli official said last month that Israel will not withdraw from the so-called Philadelphi corridor, along the Gaza-Egypt border, as called for in the ceasefire agreement. Israel has cited the need to combat weapons smuggling.


Israeli strike kills one in south Lebanon: ministry

Israeli strike kills one in south Lebanon: ministry
Updated 15 March 2025
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Israeli strike kills one in south Lebanon: ministry

Israeli strike kills one in south Lebanon: ministry

BEIRUT: An Israeli strike targeting a vehicle killed one person in south Lebanon on Saturday, the Lebanese health ministry said, according to state media.
“A strike by the Israeli enemy on a car in the town of Burj Al-Muluk (near the Israeli border) led to the death of one citizen,” the ministry’s emergency unit was quoted as saying by state news agency NNA.
A November 27 truce largely halted more than a year of hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, including two months of full-blown war in which Israel sent in ground troops.
Israel has continued to carry out periodic strikes on Lebanese territory since the agreement took effect.
On Tuesday, the Israeli military said it carried out an air strike in southern Lebanon that killed a senior Hezbollah militant who was reportedly responsible for a drone and rocket arsenal.
It came as Lebanon received four detainees who had been taken to Israel during fighting with Hezbollah, with a fifth detainee, a soldier, released on Thursday after he was taken earlier this month.
Israel had been due to withdraw from Lebanon by February 18 after missing a January deadline, but it has kept troops at five locations it deems “strategic.”
The ceasefire also required Hezbollah to pull back north of the Litani River, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border, and to dismantle any remaining military infrastructure in the south.


Israeli airstrike kills nine people in north Gaza town, medics say, amid ceasefire disputes

Israeli airstrike kills nine people in north Gaza town, medics say, amid ceasefire disputes
Updated 15 March 2025
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Israeli airstrike kills nine people in north Gaza town, medics say, amid ceasefire disputes

Israeli airstrike kills nine people in north Gaza town, medics say, amid ceasefire disputes
  • Several were critically injured as the strike hit a car, with casualties inside and outside the vehicle, health officials told Reuters
  • The Israeli military said it had struck two individuals that it identified as “terrorists”

CAIRO: At least nine Palestinians were killed, including two local journalists, and others wounded on Saturday in an Israeli airstrike on Gaza’s northern Beit Lahiya town, Gaza’s health ministry said, as Hamas’ leaders hold Gaza ceasefire talks with mediators in Cairo.
Several were critically injured as the strike hit a car, with casualties inside and outside the vehicle, health officials told Reuters.
Witnesses and fellow journalists said the people in the car were on a mission for a charity called Al-Khair Foundation in Beit Lahiya, and they were accompanied by journalists and photographers when the strike hit them. At least three local journalists were among the dead, according to Palestinian media.
The Israeli military said in a statement that it had struck two individuals that it identified as “terrorists” operating a drone that it said posed a threat to forces in Beit Lahiya.
The military later struck several other suspects who it said had collected the drone equipment and entered a vehicle.
The military did not say how it had determined that the individuals it had struck were “terrorists” or provide detail on the threat that the done had posed to its soldiers.
The incident underscores the fragility of the January 19 ceasefire agreement that halted large-scale fighting in the Gaza Strip. Palestinian health officials say dozens of people have been killed by Israeli fire despite the truce.
Commenting on the latest deaths, the Islamist Hamas group accused Israel in a statement of attempting to renege on the ceasefire agreement, putting the number of Palestinians killed since January 19 at 150.
It urged mediators to compel Israel to move ahead with the implementation of the phased ceasefire deal, blaming Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the current impasse.
Responding to some of the incidents reported by Gaza medics, the Israeli military says its forces have intervened to thwart threats by “terrorists” approaching its forces or planting bombs on the ground near where forces operate.
Since a temporary first phase of the ceasefire expired on March 2, Israel has rejected opening the second phase of talks, which would require it to negotiate over a permanent end to the war, the main demand of Palestinian militant group Hamas.
The incident coincided with a visit by Hamas’ exiled Gaza chief, Khalil Al-Hayya, to Cairo for further ceasefire talks aimed at resolving disputes with Israel that could risk a resumption of fighting in the enclave.
On Friday, Hamas said it had agreed to free an American-Israeli dual national if Israel begins the next phase of ceasefire talks toward a permanent end to the war, an offer Israel dismissed as “psychological warfare.”
Hamas said it had made the offer to release New Jersey native Edan Alexander, a 21-year-old soldier in the Israeli army, after receiving a proposal from mediators for negotiations on the second phase of a ceasefire deal.
Israel says it wants to extend the ceasefire’s temporary first phase, a proposal backed by US envoy Steve Witkoff. Hamas says it will resume freeing hostages only under the second phase.
The war began when Hamas carried out a cross-border raid into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and capturing 251 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s subsequent assault on Gaza has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials, and reduced much of the territory to rubble and led to accusations of genocide and war crimes that Israel denies.


Syrians commemorate uprising anniversary for first time since Assad’s fall

Syrians commemorate uprising anniversary for first time since Assad’s fall
Updated 15 March 2025
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Syrians commemorate uprising anniversary for first time since Assad’s fall

Syrians commemorate uprising anniversary for first time since Assad’s fall
  • Syrians were set to commemorate the 14th anniversary of their uprising on Saturday in public demonstrations in Damascus and other cities for the first time since president Bashar Assad was toppled

DAMASCUS: Syrians were set to commemorate the 14th anniversary of their uprising on Saturday in public demonstrations in Damascus and other cities for the first time since president Bashar Assad was toppled.
A demonstration will be held in Umayyad Square in the capital Damascus, the first after years of repression under Assad during which the square was the sole preserve of the toppled president’s supporters.
Activists also called on people to gather in Homs, Idlib and Hama at demonstrations raising the slogan “Syria is victorious.”
Qader Al-Sayed, 35, told AFP that “we always used to protest on the anniversary of the revolution in Idlib, but today we will celebrate victory in the heart of Damascus.”
“It’s a dream come true,” he added from Damascus.
Syria’s conflict began with peaceful demonstrations on March 15, 2011, in which thousands protested against Assad’s government, before it spiralled into civil war after his violent repression of the protests.
This year’s commemoration marks the first since Assad was toppled on December 8 by Islamist-led rebels.
Ahmed Al-Sharaa, who headed the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham which spearheaded the offensive, has since been named interim president.
On Thursday, Sharaa signed into force a constitutional declaration regulating a five-year transition period before a permanent constitution is to be put into place.
Analysts have criticized the declaration, saying it grants too much power to Sharaa and fails to provide sufficient protection to the country’s minorities.
It also came a week after Syria’s Mediterranean coast, the heartland of Assad’s Alawite minority, was gripped by the worst wave of violence since his overthrow.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor, security forces and allied groups killed at least 1,500 civilians, mainly Alawites, in the violence that erupted on March 6.
The United Nations’s special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, said on Friday: “It is fourteen years since Syrians took to the streets in peaceful protest, demanding dignity, freedom and a better future.”
He added in a statement that despite the brutal civil war, “the resilience of Syrians and their pursuit of justice, dignity and peace endure. And they now deserve a transition that is worthy of this.”
He called for “an immediate end to all violence and for protection of civilians.”