While Palestinians in Gaza are still grappling with the devastating consequences of Israel’s 15-month long genocidal campaign following the enforcement of a fragile ceasefire, the United States (U.S.) President Donald Trump revealed on 4 February his plan for the mass forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza. In a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump declared the US plan to “take over the Gaza Strip”, stating “[w]e'll own it … and we will do what is necessary” and describing Gaza as a “demolition site” that “should not go through a process of rebuilding”. Trump went as far as to question “why would they [Palestinians] want to return? That place has been hell…nobody can live there,” suggesting that Palestinians would not return to Gaza because “they have experienced nothing but death and destruction” while wilfully ignoring the fact that Israel, with US support, has destroyed Gaza in a brutal livestreamed genocide.

Trump suggests that the plan to forcibly displace the entire population is a means to, inter alia, “end[...] the death and destruction and frankly bad luck… [to where] they're not going to be shot at and killed and destroyed”, comes after several talks between the U.S. administration and Egypt and Jordan suggesting that they ‘take in’ Palestinians in Gaza. Palestinian civil society and human rights organisations vehemently reject this plan that amounts to the forced displacement of Palestinians. Instead of supporting rebuilding efforts at scale to reconstitute what Israel’s genocidal machinery has destroyed, the U.S. administration has announced its clear participation in Israel’s genocide in Gaza –– the latest plan in the ongoing Nakba, intended to fragment and destroy the Palestinian people, and deny Palestinians their inalienable right to self-determination. As promised by Israeli parliamentarians, “Gaza Nakba 2023. That’s how it’ll end”.

The announcement of Trump’s deportation plan took place alongside Prime Minister Netanyahu, against whom an arrest warrant was issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC). His arrival in the U.S. was made possible owing to ICC States Parties’ wilful failure to enforce the Court’s arrest warrants. Instead, States, including France, Italy and Greece, allowed Netanyahu to fly through their airspace on his way to the U.S., confirming their earlier statements that they would grant Netanyahu immunity should he enter their territorial jurisdiction –– acts which will rupture the international legal system.

Despite the tentative ceasefire, Israel’s genocide of Palestinians has not stopped. Israel has imposed conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza, forcing Palestinians to live through an enduring devastation that will continue to cause more death and disease under a suffocating 17-year-long closure. Israel’s targeting of  UNRWA and Trump’s announcement to end all of the support to the Agency is intended to further debilitate the Palestinian people, which contributes to the continuation of the genocide. 

Additionally, Trump’s plan to take over Gaza and expel all Palestinians to neighbouring countries crosses all red lines that define the international legal system. If carried out, it will amount to acts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity under the Rome Statute of the ICC and an internationally wrongful act of aggression, prohibited under Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, through the acquisition of territory by force. It further disregards a plethora of United Nations (UN) resolutions, including UN General Assembly Resolution 194 (III) of 11 December 1948, which requires Israel to fulfil the right of return of Palestinian refugees, displaced persons, and exiles, and UN Security Council Resolution 2334 of 2016 demanding Israel to immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.

In the press conference, President Trump confirmed that his administration is discussing the possibility of extending Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank. This indicates that Trump’s plan is not limited to Gaza, but extends to the entirety of the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), including the formal annexation of the West Bank. This is happening against the backdrop of  Israeli Occupying Forces employing tactics similar to those used in Gaza in its ongoing military attack on northern West Bank. 

Lastly, Trump’s recent decisions to withdraw from the World Health Organization (WHO), the Paris climate agreement, and the UN Human Rights Council send a clear message that the U.S. does not want to be part of the current international legal order. On the contrary, the current U.S. administration is aiming to change the world order through so-called “peace through strength”. This same rhetoric has been repeated by Israeli officials, including Bezalel Smotrich, and further continues the plan presented by Prime Minister Netanyahu at the UN General Assembly of “fighting the forces” that “threaten that peace”, particularly those stopping Israel’s reshaping of the Middle East, and planned land bridge between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, to secure inter alia energy pipelines.

We emphasise that the only plan that should be on the table following the ceasefire is one that upholds the rights of the Palestinian people of self-determination and return. This entails the right of the Palestinians in Gaza to choose their own future, remain in their land, and rebuild it. Trump’s suggestion of forcible displacement to end the death and destruction in Gaza is telling of the U.S. administrations’ complicity and direct participation in the genocide. It is further a violation of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, fuelling the ongoing Nakba of the Palestinian people. We warn that Trump’s administration is a serious threat to not only the Palestinian people, but all of humanity.

Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in Gaza stresses: 

“Netanyahu, who was received by the U.S. President yesterday is wanted for committing war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court. Instead of handing him over to international justice, Trump is trying to enforce Netenyahu’s genocidal plan that aims at displacing the Palestinian people. This is something which our ancestors for dozens of years have never accepted, nor will it be accepted by the current generation. Despite the destruction, genocide, and the lack of minimum requirements of survival, Palestinians will never accept being uprooted from their land. This is our land, this our right, and the majority of the Gaza population, who are refugees, want to return to the lands they have been forcibly displaced from in 1948. For decades, we have been urging the international community to achieve this. Instead of doing that, they want to displace us again? This will never happen. No one has the right to decide for the Palestinian people, except for themselves.”

Our colleague in Northern Gaza stated:

“Trump’s statements are worthless and weightless. How can a person like me who stood firm inside northern Gaza and refused the constant evacuation orders, despite the difficult repercussions that my family and I experienced, including genocide, displacement, death, starvation and siege, accept to be forcibly displaced outside Gaza? Trump’s statements only reinforce our attachment and love to the land. Who is he to decide the fate and future of an entire people and repeat the 1948 Nakba? Our people have made great sacrifices for their land and we are still steadfast on our land despite the attempts of forced displacement and the massive destruction surrounding us. We will remain attached to our land no matter what the price we will pay, and we will not accept any re-settlement plants that affect our legitimate rights and political and geographical unity.”

As Palestinian civil society organisations, we call on the international community, and UN member states to:

• Call on the United States to retract its plan to forcibly displace Palestinians in Gaza, and reject any attempts by Israel to formally annex the West Bank; 
• Ensure that Palestinians exercise their right of return to what is left of their homes in Gaza in safety, protection, and dignity, and ensure the provision of shelter, food and medical care to displaced Palestinians in the OPT, 
• Ensure the immediate and unimpeded provision of all material, logistical, financial, and social support required by Palestinians in Gaza;
• Publicly condemn the use of sanctions to undermine the ICC, and the dismantling of UNRWA; 
• For European States to take actions to implement the EU Blocking Statute to shield against US sanctions on the International Criminal Court;
• Fully cooperate with the International Criminal Court, enforce the arrest warrants to arrest Prime MInister Netanyahu and former Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant; and expand the charges to include settlements and genocide;
• Compel Israel to rescind its legislation banning UNRWA, and urge the U.S. to reinstate the funding to the UNRWA; 
• Intervene in the UNRWA Advisory Opinion before the International Court of Justice; and intervene in the South Africa v Israel genocide case;
• Address the root causes of the genocide, by dismantling Israel’s Zionist settler-colonial apartheid regime and ending the illegal occupation;
• Impose sanctions, including a two-way military embargo, encompassing all arms, banking, financial, economic, trade and diplomatic sanctions on Israel; including ending all gas deals with Israel, using pipelines located in Palestine’s territorial waters off Gaza;
• Call on social movements, activist groups and persons of conscience in solidarity with Palestine to use all means available to campaign against and disrupt President Trump's colonial genocidal plans.

This is a joint statement. Endorsing organisations can publish this statement on their channels.