Trump urges Egypt and Jordan to take Palestinians as thousands blocked from northern Gaza
Trump urges Egypt and Jordan to take Palestinians as thousands blocked from northern Gaza
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Donald Trump has said Jordan and Egypt should take in Palestinians from war-ravaged Gaza. The US president called on the two nations to take in people either temporarily or permanently, adding: "We should just clear out the whole thing.". "It's literally a demolition site, almost everything is demolished and people are dying there," he told reporters after a call with Jordan's King Abdullah.
Tens of thousands of people remain blocked from returning to northern Gaza after Israel accused Hamas of breaching a ceasefire agreement and refused to open checkpoints to allow crossings into the north. A day after a second exchange involving four Israeli women hostages held in Gaza for 200 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, scores of stranded Palestinians waited along the main roads leading north.
Cars, trucks and rickshaws were overloaded with mattresses, food, and tents that served as shelters for over a year for those in the central and southern areas of the enclave. "A sea of people is waiting for a signal to move back to Gaza City and the north," said Tamer al Burai, a displaced person from Gaza City.
"This is the deal that was signed, isn't it? Many of those people have no idea whether their houses back home are still standing. But they want to go regardless, they want to put up the tents next to the rubble of their houses, they want to feel home," he told the Reuters news agency via a chat app.
