After initial paralysis: Mideast nations come out strongly against Trump’s Gaza plan

U.S. President Donald Trump’s surprise announcement of his plan to take over the Gaza Strip and move most, if not all of its population elsewhere, stunned the Middle East.

While their strong opposition was expected, most nations in the region waited several hours to react to the statement that came out early Wednesday morning, local time.

The first to react was the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as well as the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, who are vying to publicly represent the Gazan population. Several European countries also rejected the idea on Wednesday.

By Thursday, most countries in the region had issued strong, but diplomatically worded condemnations of the plan, while anonymous sources revealed the drastic effect Trump’s words had behind the scenes.

“These are dark days. There is shock and concern following Trump's words,” an anonymous Arab diplomat told Israel’s Kan News. “This is the negotiating method of a real estate man, not a statesman. Migration is a red line and there is no room for thinking about it,” he said.

The diplomat also warned that Trump’s statements would eventually harm Israel because they would strengthen the radicals in the region. He added that while the upcoming visits of Egypt’s and Jordan’s leaders to the White House could still change the picture, both countries strongly oppose moving Gazans anywhere else, not just to their own countries.

Two Arab officials also warned that the controversial plan could negatively impact the talks between Israel and Hamas about the second phase of the ceasefire. “The deal is very fragile, and the transition from the first to the second phase was always going to be difficult, but this could completely upend everything,” one of the officials told the Times of Israel.

The second official revealed that Hamas had already told mediators that Trump’s statement would have an effect, without going into further detail.

In his comments over the past week leading up to his dramatic announcement on Tuesday evening, Trump pointed to Jordan and Egypt as the main destinations for the relocation of Gaza’s population.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty responded by stressing that the reconstruction of Gaza should be advanced “without the Palestinians leaving the Strip." Two unnamed Egyptian officials told the Times of Israel that the proposal could risk the decades-long peace with Israel.

Cairo has contacted the Trump administration, U.S. officials, as well as several Western nations to transmit this message, the officials said.

A Western diplomat based in Cairo added that Egypt sees the plan as a threat to its national security, and confirmed that Egypt had sent a message stressing that the 1979 peace accord with Israel, the first recognition of the Jewish State by an Arab state, was in serious danger.

Meanwhile, Jordan’s King Abdullah II reached out to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, United Arab Emirates President Mohamed bin Zayed, and Qatar’s Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani via phone to talk about the “dangerous developments in Gaza.”

He also received Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in his palace and reaffirmed his kingdom’s “full support for the Palestinians in gaining their legitimate rights.”

His Majesty King Abdullah II, while receiving Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at Al Husseiniya Palace with His Royal Highness Crown Prince Al Hussein, affirmed #Jordan's full support for the Palestinians in gaining their legitimate rights #Palestine pic.twitter.com/rJ6pQnSvTG

— RHC (@RHCJO) February 5, 2025

The Palestinian Authority (PA) was already in the midst of a diplomatic campaign to promote the reconstruction of the destroyed Gaza Strip when Trump’s plans upended the table.

In his official statement, Abbas declared, “We will not allow the rights of our people, for which we have fought for decades and sacrificed much to achieve them, to be violated. These statements are a serious violation of international law. Peace and stability will not be achieved in the region without the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, within the borders of June 4, 1967, on the basis of a two-state solution.”

A senior member of Fatah, the dominant party within the PA, praised the unified front the Arab nations presented against the plan to move the Gazan population.

“We heard the positions of the Arab countries – Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia and all twenty-two Arab countries that signed the statement rejecting the idea of ​​the expulsion. We heard the positions of France, Britain, China, and many countries of the world – this idea was born dead and isolated and cannot bring security and stability in the region,” Osama al-Qawasmeh said in a radio interview.

Saudi Arabia is poised to lead the Arab states in a concerted diplomatic campaign against the plan. The kingdom prepares to convene an international conference aimed at “opposing the displacement of the Gaza population” under the title “No to ethnic cleansing,” i24 News reported.

Speaking to Israel’s Channel 12 News, a source within the Saudi royal family also rejected Trump’s comments that Saudi Arabia would accept normalization with Israel without a commitment to a Palestinian state. “When Trump says that Saudi Arabia wants peace without a Palestinian state, it contradicts our basic conditions,” the source said.

“We want a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital as a main condition, this is not subject to negotiations. Normalization will not take place without this condition.”

Strong opposition to Trump also came from the region’s two major non-Arab powers, Turkey and Iran.

Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan called Trump’s idea “to forcibly evacuate Palestinians” an “unacceptable imposition.”

“Proposing the deportation of Gazans is a waste of time, and it is wrong to even bring it up for discussion. We are against any steps that will continue the genocide, deportation, and isolation of Palestinians,” Fidan said.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baqaei meanwhile said the plan was merely “part of colonial erasure,” which “has long been underway with American lethal weapons and ammunitions [sic] as well as its political, intelligence and financial support.”

“The occupiers’ 15-months-long genocidal campaign could not uproot the Palestinian nation from their Motherland nor could it be effected through political coercion and demographic manipulations,” Baqaei wrote on 𝕏.

“The plan to clear Gaza and forcibly displace the Palestinian people to neighboring countries is considered a continuation of the Zionist regime’s targeted plan to completely annihilate the Palestinian nation, and is categorically rejected and condemned,” he added.