‘I won’t leave. Put that in your brain.’ Palestinians reject Trump’s call to expel them from Gaza

‘I won’t leave. Put that in your brain.’ Palestinians reject Trump’s call to expel them from Gaza
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Two children wait to get water next to a line of empty jerrycans in an area largely destroyed by the Israeli army’s air and ground offensive in Gaza City, Feb. 5, 2025. (AP)
‘I won’t leave. Put that in your brain.’ Palestinians reject Trump’s call to expel them from Gaza
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Ismael Mohammed (center), 47, and his family, who were displaced to the southern part of Gaza at Israel’s order during the war, return to their destroyed house amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City, Jan. 28, 2025. (Reuters)
‘I won’t leave. Put that in your brain.’ Palestinians reject Trump’s call to expel them from Gaza
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Ismael Mohammed, 47, who was displaced with his family to the southern part of Gaza at Israel's order during the war, gives water to his son Mohammed, 5, as they rest on the road while making their way back to their destroyed house in Gaza. (Reuters)
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Updated 06 February 2025
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‘I won’t leave. Put that in your brain.’ Palestinians reject Trump’s call to expel them from Gaza

‘I won’t leave. Put that in your brain.’ Palestinians reject Trump’s call to expel them from Gaza
  • Hundreds of thousands in the territory rushed to return to their homes – even if destroyed – as soon as they could following the ceasefire
  • Palestinians across the region saw in it an effort to erase them completely from their homeland

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: Saeed Abu Elaish’s wife, two of his daughters and two dozen others from his extended family were killed by Israeli airstrikes over the past 15 months.
His house in northern Gaza was destroyed. He and surviving family now live in a tent set up in the rubble of his home.
But he says he will not be driven out, after President Donald Trump called for transferring all Palestinians from Gaza so the United States could take over the devastated territory and rebuild it for others. Rights groups said his comments were tantamount to a call for “ethnic cleansing” and forcible expulsion.
“We categorically reject and will resist any plans to deport and transfer us from our land,” he said from the Jabaliya refugee camp.
Trump’s call for depopulating Gaza has stunned Palestinians. Hundreds of thousands in the territory rushed to return to their homes – even if destroyed – as soon as they could following the ceasefire reached last month between Israel and Hamas.
Though some experts speculated that Trump’s proposal might be a negotiating tactic, Palestinians across the region saw in it an effort to erase them completely from their homeland, a continuation of the expulsion and displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes in what is now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding its creation.

That event is known among Palestinians as the “Nakba,” Arabic for the “Catastrophe.” Trump’s statement — a wild swing away from years of US policy — meshed with calls from far-right politicians in Israel to push Palestinians out of Gaza, particularly into Egypt.
“We don’t want a repeat of our ancestors’ tragedy,” said Abu Elaish, a health care worker.
Like many, Abu Elaish could point to his own family’s experience. In May 1948, Israeli forces expelled his grandparents and other Palestinians and demolished their homes in the village of Hoj in what’s now southern Israel just outside the Gaza Strip, he said. The family resettled in Gaza’s Jabaliya camp, which over the decades grew into a densely built urban neighborhood. Israeli troops leveled most of the district during fierce fighting with Hamas militants over recent months.
Mustafa Al-Gazzar was 5 years old, he said, when his family and other residents were forced to flee as Israeli forces in 1948 attacked their town of Yabneh in what is now central Israel.
Now in his 80s, he sat outside his home in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, flattened by an airstrike, and said it was unthinkable to go after surviving 15 months of war.
“Are you crazy, you think I would leave?” he said. “You think you’ll expel me abroad and bring other people in my place? … I would rather live in my tent, under rubble. I won’t leave. Put that in your brain.”
“Instead of being sent abroad, I should return to my original land where I was born and will die,” he said, referring to Yabneh, located near what is now the central Israeli city of Yavneh. He said Trump should be seeking a two-state solution. “This is the ideal, clear solution, peace for the Israelis and peace for the Palestinians, living side by side,” he said.
In his comments Tuesday alongside visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump said Palestinians from Gaza should be resettled in lands in Egypt, Jordan or elsewhere, promising them a “beautiful place.” Egypt and Jordan have both rejected Trump’s call to resettle Palestinians on their soil.
Trump said the US would take over Gaza and rebuild it into a “Riviera of the Middle East” for “the world’s people,” dismissing the idea that Palestinians would refuse to leave or want to return.
Amna Omar, a 71-year-old from the central Gaza town of Deir Al-Balah, called Trump a “madman.”
Omar was able to go to Egypt during the war after her husband was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. In Cairo, doctors told them his cancer had gone untreated for too long and he died in October.
She said she intends to go back home as soon as she can, as did other Palestinians in Egypt.
“Gaza is our land, our home. We as Gazans have the right to the land and want to rebuild it,” she said. “I don’t want to die in Egypt like my husband. I want to die at home.”
Palestinians have shown a powerful determination to return to their homes after nearly the entire population was displaced by the war. Joyous crowds streamed back to northern Gaza and Rafah, both of which were devastated by Israeli bombardment and ground offensives.
With their neighborhoods reduced to landscapes of rubble, many returnees are homeless, water is scarce and electricity is largely non-existent in most areas. Still, for most, the destruction has not diminished their will to stay.
“We remain here, even if it means living in the rubble of our homes — better that than living in humiliation elsewhere,” said Ibrahim Abu Rizk, who returned to Rafah to find his home in ruins. “For a year and a half, we have been slaughtered, bombed, and destroyed, only to then leave just like that?”
The ceasefire deal brokered by the US, Egypt and Qatar, calls for a return of Palestinians to their homes as well as a massive international reconstruction effort in its third phase – assuming Israel and Hamas can reach a deal on who will govern the territory.
International law forbids the forced removal of populations. The Israeli rights group B’tselem said Trump’s statement “constitutes a call for ethnic cleansing through uprooting and forcibly transferring some 2 million people. This is Trump and Netanyahu’s roadmap for a second Nakba of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”
Palestinian refugees have long demanded they be allowed to return to homes in what is now Israel, citing the right to return widely recognized for refugees under international law. Israel argues that right does not apply to the Palestinians and says a mass return would end the Jewish majority in the country.
Throughout the 15-month war in Gaza, many Palestinians expressed fear that Israel’s goal was to drive the population into neighboring Egypt. The government denied that aim, though some hard-right members of the coalition called for encouraging Palestinians to leave Gaza and for restoring Jewish settlements there. The Israeli-occupied West Bank — home to more than 500,000 settlers — has also seen more than a year of escalated violence.
The rejection of Trump’s call was echoed by Palestinians in the West Bank and in surrounding Arab countries like Jordan and Lebanon that are also home to large refugee populations.
“If he wants to displace the population of Gaza,” Mohammed Al-Amiri, a resident in the West Bank city of Ramallah, said of Trump, “then he should return them to their original homeland from which they were displaced in 1948, inside Israel, in the depopulated villages.”


Houthis say US warplanes carried out 17 strikes in Yemen

Updated 15 sec ago
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Houthis say US warplanes carried out 17 strikes in Yemen

Houthis say US warplanes carried out 17 strikes in Yemen
Sanaa: Houthi media in Yemen reported Wednesday at least 17 strikes in Saada and Amran, blaming the United States for the attacks.
The rebels’ Ansarollah website said US warplanes carried out “aggressive air raids... causing material damage to citizens’ property,” but gave no details of casualties.
Washington on March 15 announced a military offensive against the Iranian-backed Houthis, promising to use overwhelming force until the group stopped firing on vessels in the key shipping routes of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
That day saw a wave of US air strikes that officials said killed senior Houthi leaders, and which the rebels’ health ministry said killed 53 people.
Since then, Houthi-held parts of Yemen have witnessed near-daily attacks that the group has blamed on the United States, with the rebels announcing the targeting of US military ships and Israel.
The Houthis began targeting shipping vessels after the start of the Gaza war, claiming solidarity with Palestinians, but paused their campaign when a ceasefire took effect in Gaza in January.
Earlier this month, they threatened to renew attacks in the vital maritime trade route over Israel’s aid blockade on the Palestinian territory, triggering the first US strikes on Yemen since President Donald Trump took office in January.
Last week, Trump threatened to annihilate the Houthis and warned Tehran against continuing to aid the group.

Told to fix notorious prison, Israel just relocated alleged abuses, detainees say

Told to fix notorious prison, Israel just relocated alleged abuses, detainees say
Updated 29 min 46 sec ago
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Told to fix notorious prison, Israel just relocated alleged abuses, detainees say

Told to fix notorious prison, Israel just relocated alleged abuses, detainees say
  • The alleged abuses include beatings, excessive handcuffing, and poor diet and health care
  • Military transferred hundreds of detainees to newly opened camps

JERUSALEM: Under pressure from Israel’s top court to improve conditions at a facility notorious for mistreating Palestinians seized in Gaza, the military transferred hundreds of detainees to newly opened camps.
But abuses at these camps were just as bad, according to Israeli human rights organizations that interviewed dozens of current and former detainees and are now asking the same court to force the military to fix the problem once and for all.
What the detainees’ testimonies show, rights groups say, is that instead of correcting alleged abuses against Palestinians held without charge or trial — including beatings, excessive handcuffing, and poor diet and health care — Israel’s military just shifted where they take place.
“What we’ve seen is the erosion of the basic standards for humane detention,” said Jessica Montell, the director of Hamoked, one of the rights groups petitioning the Israeli government.
Asked for a response, the military said it complies with international law and “completely rejects allegations regarding the systematic abuse of detainees.”
The sprawling Ofer Camp and the smaller Anatot Camp, both built in the West Bank, were supposed to resolve problems rights groups documented at a detention center in the Negev desert called Sde Teiman. That site was intended to temporarily hold and treat militants captured during Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. But it morphed into a long-term detention center infamous for brutalizing Palestinians rounded up in Gaza, often without being charged.
Detainees transferred to Ofer and Anatot say conditions there were no better, according to more than 30 who were interviewed by lawyers for Hamoked and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel. AP is the first international news organization to report on the affidavits from PHRI.
“They would punish you for anything” said Khaled Alserr, 32, a surgeon from Gaza who spent months at Ofer Camp and agreed to speak about his experiences. He was released after six months without charge.
Alserr said he lost count of the beatings he endured from soldiers after being rounded up in March of last year during a raid at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. “You’d be punished for making eye contact, for asking for medicine, for looking up toward the sky,” said Alserr.
Other detainees’ accounts to the rights groups remain anonymous. Their accounts could not be independently confirmed, but their testimonies – given separately – were similar.
The Supreme Court has given the military until the end of March to respond to the alleged abuses at Ofer.
Leaving Sde Teiman
Since the war began, Israel has seized thousands in Gaza that it suspects of links to Hamas. Thousands have also been released, often after months of detention.
Hundreds of detainees were freed during the ceasefire that began in January. But with ground operations recently restarted in Gaza, arrests continue. The military won’t say how many detainees it holds.
After Israel’s Supreme Court ordered better treatment at Sde Teiman, the military said in June it was transferring hundreds of detainees, including 500 sent to Ofer.
Ofer was built on an empty lot next to a civilian prison of the same name. Satellite photos from January show a paved, walled compound, with 24 mobile homes that serve as cells.
Anatot, built on a military base in a Jewish settlement, has two barracks, each with room for about 50 people, according to Hamoked.
Under wartime Israeli law, the military can hold Palestinians from Gaza for 45 days without access to the outside world. In practice, many go far longer.
Whenever detainees met with Hamoked lawyers, they were “dragged violently” into a cell — sometimes barefoot and often blindfolded, and their hands and feet remained shackled throughout the meetings, the rights group said in a letter to the military’s advocate general.
“I don’t know where I am,” one detainee told a lawyer.
Newly freed Israeli hostages have spoken out about their own harsh conditions in Gaza. Eli Sharabi, who emerged gaunt after 15 months of captivity, told Israel’s Channel 12 news that his captors said hostages’ conditions were influenced by Israel’s treatment of Palestinian prisoners.
Detainees allege regular beatings
Alserr said he was kept with 21 others from Gaza in a 40-square-meter cell with eight bunk beds. Some slept on the floor on camping mattresses soldiers had punctured so they couldn’t inflate, he said. Scabies and lice were rampant. He said he was only allowed outside his cell once a week.
Detainees from Ofer and Anatot said they were regularly beaten with fists and batons. Some said they were kept in handcuffs for months, including while they slept and ate — and unshackled only when allowed to shower once a week.
Three prisoners held in Anatot told the lawyers that they were blindfolded constantly. One Anatot detainee said that soldiers woke them every hour during the night and made them stand for a half-hour.
In response to questions from AP, the military said it was unaware of claims that soldiers woke detainees up. It said detainees have regular shower access and are allowed daily yard time. It said occasional overcrowding meant some detainees were forced to sleep on “mattresses on the floor.”
The military said it closed Anatot in early February because it was no longer needed for “short-term incarceration” when other facilities were full. Sde Teiman, which has been upgraded, is still in use.
Nutrition and health care
Alserr said the worst thing about Ofer was medical care. He said guards refused to give him antacids for a chronic ulcer. After 40 days, he felt a rupture. In the truck heading to the hospital, soldiers tied a bag around his head.
“They beat me all the way to the hospital,” he said. “At the hospital they refused to remove the bag, even when they were treating me.”
The military said all detainees receive checkups and proper medical care. It said “prolonged restraint during detention” was only used in exceptional cases and taking into account the condition of each detainee.
Many detainees complained of hunger. They said they received three meals a day of a few slices of white bread with a cucumber or tomato, and sometimes some chocolate or custard.
That amounts to about 1,000 calories a day, or half what is necessary, said Lihi Joffe, an Israeli pediatric dietician who read some of the Ofer testimonies and called the diet “not humane.”
After rights groups complained in November, Joffe said she saw new menus at Ofer with greater variety, including potatoes and falafel — an improvement, she said, but still not enough.
The military said a nutritionist approves detainees’ meals, and that they always have access to water.
Punished for seeing a lawyer
Two months into his detention, Alserr had a 5-minute videoconference with a judge, who said he would stay in prison for the foreseeable future.
Such hearings are “systematically” brief, according to Nadia Daqqa, a Hamoked attorney. No lawyers are present and detainees are not allowed to talk, she said.
Several months later, Alserr was allowed to meet with a lawyer. But he said he was forced to kneel in the sun for hours beforehand.
Another detainee told the lawyer from Physicians for Human Rights that he underwent the same punishment. ”All the time, he has been threatening to take his own life,” the lawyer wrote in notes affixed to the affidavit.
Since his release in September, Alserr has returned to work at the hospital in Gaza.
The memories are still painful, but caring for patients again helps, he said. “I’m starting to forget ... to feel myself again as a human being.”


Sudan army denies killing civilians in market attack

Sudan army denies killing civilians in market attack
Updated 26 March 2025
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Sudan army denies killing civilians in market attack

Sudan army denies killing civilians in market attack
  • At least 270 killed in airstrike in North Darfur amid conflict with paramilitary rivals
KHARTOUM: Sudan’s regular army denied targeting civilians on Tuesday after at least 270 people died in an airstrike on a market in Tora in North Darfur.

“False claims such as this arise whenever our forces exercise their constitutional and legitimate right to engage hostile targets,” military spokesman Nabil Abdallah said. “We abide in our air strikes by the rules of targeting in accordance with international law, and we absolutely cannot target innocent civilians.”

The army has been fighting the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces since April 2023, and both sides have been accused of war crimes. The conflict has killed at least 150,000 people and displaced about 12 million.

The strike in Darfur came days after the army reclaimed the presidential palace in Khartoum in a major victory over the paramilitaries. North Darfur state capital El-Fasher, 40 km south of Tora, is the only regional state capital the Rapid Support Forces have not captured, despite besieging the city for ten months and regularly attacking the displacement camps that surround it.

Turkiye, US want to lift defense industry restrictions after talks, Turkish source says

Turkiye, US want to lift defense industry restrictions after talks, Turkish source says
Updated 26 March 2025
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Turkiye, US want to lift defense industry restrictions after talks, Turkish source says

Turkiye, US want to lift defense industry restrictions after talks, Turkish source says
  • Ties between the US and Turkiye have drifted away from a strategic partnership in recent years as disagreements between the two long-standing treaty allies have widened
  • The two emphasized the importance of stability in Syria and in the Balkans, while discussing efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine war, and the need for a ceasefire in Gaza, the source added

ANKARA/WASHINGTON: Turkiye and the United States want to remove obstacles to defense industry cooperation, a Turkish Foreign Ministry source said on Wednesday, after talks between the NATO allies’ top diplomats in Washington.
On Tuesday, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan kicked off a two-day visit to Washington, where he was expected to ask Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other US officials to remove US sanctions on Turkiye and allow it back into a crucial fighter jet program.
The visit comes as Ankara seeks warmer ties with Washington under the administration of President Donald Trump and just days after a phone call between Trump and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan that a top Trump aide described as “transformational.”
The top Turkish diplomat’s visit also comes at a critical time for Erdogan, after his main political rival and Istanbul’s mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, was jailed pending trial on Sunday, prompting the largest anti-government protests in over a decade.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Turkish foreign minister meets Rubio in Washington

• Turkey wants back into F-35 program, lifting of CAATSA sanctions

• Trump and Turkey's Erdogan had 'transformational' phone call

Ties between the US and Turkiye have drifted away from a strategic partnership in recent years as disagreements between the two long-standing treaty allies have widened.
The administration of former President Joe Biden kept Turkiye at arm’s length over what it saw as the fellow NATO member’s close ties with Russia. Under Trump, who views Moscow much more favorably, Ankara is hoping for a warmer relationship with Washington. It also plans to capitalize on the personal ties between the two leaders.
During the meeting between Fidan and Rubio on Tuesday, both sides “clearly put forth their political will to lift obstacles to cooperation in the defense industry field,” the source said, adding they also followed up on matters discussed between Trump and Erdogan.
“Technical talks will be held for the resolution of existing problems,” the person added, without elaborating.
During his first term, Trump initially ignored advice from his aides to impose sanctions on Turkiye under its Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) over Ankara’s acquisition of Russian S-400 air defense missile systems in 2019. He then took the step in 2020.
That acquisition also led to Turkiye’s removal from the F-35 jet program, where it was a manufacturer and buyer. Ankara says its removal is unjust and illegal, and has demanded to rejoin or be reimbursed for its investment in the program.
Conversations between the allies on how to resolve the S-400 deadlock were ongoing under Biden. Turkiye had pledged to keep the systems non-operational, a source familiar with the discussions said, but a breakthrough never came.
A Turkish official, requesting anonymity, told Reuters ahead of Fidan’s visit that Ankara was aiming to agree with Washington that keeping the S-400s non-operational can be enough to resolve the matter.

RUSSIA IMPACT
During the Biden era, the allies had settled into a new phase of relations, with a more transactional focus rather than based on shared values, as differences over policies on Syria, the war in Gaza, and judicial matters persisted.
Since coming back into office on January 20, Trump upended Biden’s policy to isolate Moscow and provide unwavering support to Kyiv and instead focused on ending Russia’s war in Ukraine. His shift spooked European leaders who feared Washington could be turning its back to Europe and bolstered Ankara’s role as a potential partner in reshaping European security.
The Turkish official said discussions between Washington and Ankara had “taken a new dimension” after Trump’s shift in approach to Moscow.
“If US sanctions on Russia are to be lifted, it becomes illogical for CAATSA to be implemented on third countries. As much as this issue is about Turkiye-USA ties, it is also about Turkiye-Russia ties,” the official added.
Sources familiar with the matter said the phone call between Erdogan and Trump may bring positive momentum to conversations in coming days, though no promises were made.
“The president had a great conversation with Erdogan a couple of days ago. Really transformational, I would describe it,” Trump’s special envoy for the Middle East Steve Witkoff said in an interview with right-wing podcaster Tucker Carlson.
Exclusion from the F-35 program pushed Turkiye to purchase 40 Lockheed Martin Block-70 F-16 fighter jets. However, despite agreeing on the procurement, there has been little progress on the acquisition for months.
The Turkish source said Fidan and Rubio also discussed head of state-level visits to be held in the coming period, without elaborating.
The two also emphasized the importance of stability in Syria and in the Balkans, while discussing efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine war, and the need for a ceasefire in Gaza, the source added.

 


UAE president discusses Gaza with Donald Trump, reviews recent bilateral agreements

UAE president discusses Gaza with Donald Trump, reviews recent bilateral agreements
Updated 26 March 2025
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UAE president discusses Gaza with Donald Trump, reviews recent bilateral agreements

UAE president discusses Gaza with Donald Trump, reviews recent bilateral agreements
  • Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed reiterates to his US counterpart the UAE’s commitment to a 2-state solution to Israeli-Palestinian conflict
  • The leaders also review the outcomes of the official visit to Washington last week by the UAE’s national security adviser

LONDON: The president of the UAE, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, spoke on Tuesday with his American counterpart, Donald Trump, about several Middle Eastern issues including the conflict in Gaza.

During their telephone conversation, Sheikh Mohammed reiterated the UAE’s commitment to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the foundation for a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the region.

He also addressed the ongoing efforts to secure a lasting ceasefire agreement in Gaza and maintain regional stability, and emphasized the need for vital humanitarian aid to reach the people in the Palestinian territory, the Emirates News Agency reported.

The leaders also reviewed the outcomes of an official visit to Washington last week by the UAE’s national security adviser, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al-Nahyan. Significant agreements between the two nations were reached during his trip in areas including artificial intelligence, advanced technology, infrastructure and energy.

Sheikh Mohammed and Trump reiterated their shared commitment to the enhancement of strategic cooperation for mutual benefit, the news agency added.