Washington DC [US], January 27 : In a shocker, US President Donald Trump suggested 'cleaning up' of the Gaza Strip, which is battered into rubbles following the intense Israel-Hamas war, and expressed the idea of moving Palestinians from the strip to some neighbouring countries.
Trump said he spoke to the king of Jordan about potentially building housing and moving more than 1 million Palestinians from Gaza to neighbouring countries, as reported by CNN.
Trump said he asked Jordan's Abdullah II, a key US partner in the region, to take in more Palestinians in a Saturday phone call.
"I said to him that I'd love you to take on more, because I'm looking at the whole Gaza Strip right now and it's a mess, it's a real mess," CNN quoted Trump as saying aboard Air Force One.
Jordan's state news agency Petra reported the call with Trump, but made no mention of relocating Palestinians. The kingdom is already home to more than 2.39 million registered Palestinian refugees, according to the UN.
Trump said he would like both Jordan and Egypt - which borders Gaza - to house people, and that he would also speak to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi about the matter on Sunday.
"You're talking about a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing," Trump said as quoted by CNN, adding that there have been centuries-long conflicts in the region.
He continued: "I don't know, something has to happen, but it's literally a demolition site right now. Almost everything's demolished and people are dying there, so I'd rather get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing in a different location where I think they could maybe live in peace for a change."
Notably, Israeli airstrikes have damaged or destroyed around 60 per cent of buildings, including schools and hospitals, and around 92 per cent of homes, according to the UN.
Approximately 90 per cent of the Gazans have been displaced, and many residents have been forced to move repeatedly, some more than 10 times.
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