Resistance groups slam Trump idea of relocating Palestinians

Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad reacted with defiance on Sunday to a plan floated by US President Donald Trump to "clean out" Gaza, as a fragile truce aimed at permanently ending Israeli aggression entered its second week.

Meanwhile, a dispute linked to the latest prisoner swap under the truce deal led to vast crowds of Palestinians jamming a coastal road after they were blocked from returning to the enclave's north.

The swap saw four Israeli women captives, all soldiers, and 200 Palestinian prisoners released on Saturday to joyful scenes, in the second such exchange so far.

After 15 months of war, Trump said Gaza had become a "demolition site", adding he had spoken to Jordan's King Abdullah II about moving Palestinians out of the territory.

"I'd like Egypt to take people. And I'd like Jordan to take people," Trump told reporters, adding he expected to talk to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el Sisi on Sunday.

Most Palestinians in Gaza are refugees or their descendants.

For Palestinians, any attempt to move them from Gaza would evoke dark historical memories of what is called the "Nakba" or catastrophe -- the mass displacement of Palestinians during Israel's creation 75 years ago.

Warning against any 'forced displacement'

Egypt has previously warned against any "forced displacement" of Palestinians from Gaza into the Sinai desert, which Sisi said could jeopardise the peace treaty Egypt signed with Israel in 1979.

Jordan is already home to around 2.3 million registered Palestinian refugees, according to the United Nations.

"You're talking about probably a million and half people, and we just clean out that whole thing," Trump said of Gaza, whose population is about 2.4 million.

"I'd rather get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing at a different location where they can maybe live in peace for a change," Trump said, adding that moving Gaza's inhabitants could be done "temporarily or could be long term".

'Deplorable'

Bassem Naim, a member of Hamas's political bureau, told AFP that Palestinians would "foil such projects", as they have done to similar plans "for displacement and alternative homelands over the decades".

Palestinians in Gaza, he said, "will not accept any offers or solutions, even if their apparent intentions are good under the banner of reconstruction, as proposed by US President Trump."

Islamic Jihad, which has fought alongside Hamas in Gaza, called Trump's idea "deplorable" and said it encouraged "war crimes and crimes against humanity by forcing our people to leave their land".

But far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who opposed the Gaza truce deal, said Trump's suggestion of "helping them find other places to start a better life is a great idea".

He added: "Only out-of-the-box thinking with new solutions will bring a solution of peace and security."

Almost all Palestinians in Gaza have been displaced by the Israeli war that began on October 7, 2023 following a Hamas attack.

The United Nations says close to 70 percent of the territory's buildings are damaged or destroyed.