Trump says he is pressing leaders of Arab nations to take in Gaza Palestinians
Trump said he had already pressed Jordan to accept Gazans and would do the same with Egypt

Palestinians walk along destroyed houses at the Shaboura area in the center of Rafah, days into the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, Jan 24, 2025.(Abed Rahim Khatib/dpa via Getty Images)
(JTA) — President Donald Trump says he has asked Jordan to accept Palestinians from Gaza and plans to press Egypt to do the same.
Trump said he spoke to Jordan’s King Abdullah II on Saturday, five days after being inaugurated for his second term and six days into a ceasefire that he pressed for in the Israel-Hamas war.
“I said to him 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. I’d like him to take people,” Trump told reporters Saturday night aboard Air Force One following a rally in Las Vegas. Calling Gaza “literally a demolition site right now,” he added, “I’d like Egypt to take people.”
While millions of Palestinian refugees have lived in Jordan since Israel’s founding in 1948, Arab states have since been resistant to accepting Palestinian refugees out of concern that doing so would aid ethnic cleansing and undercut pressure for Palestinian statehood.
Some on Israel’s far right would like to see Jewish resettlement in Gaza after the war and have called on Israel to encourage Palestinians to emigrate from the enclave. David Friedman, Trump’s’ ambassador to Israel during his first term, said this week that Trump could support encouraging emigration.
Asked whether he envisioned such a move as temporary, Trump said, “It could be temporary, could be permanent.”
Trump did not say how Jordan’s Abdullah responded. Just days after the Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of Israel by Hamas that launched the war, the king said, “No refugees in Jordan, no refugees in Egypt.”
Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, said the same thing at the time. Trump said he planned to speak to Sisi on Sunday.
Egypt and Jordan both have peace agreements with Israel. During his first term, Trump brokered normalization agreements between Israel and several Arab nations, and he is seen as eager to strike a deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
“People are dying there,” Trump said about Gaza. “So I’d rather get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing in a different location where they can maybe live in peace for a change.”
Reconstruction of Gaza would begin under the third and final phase of the current ceasefire, which is less than a week into its six-week first phase.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 2
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
- 3
Culture Did this Jewish literary titan have the right idea about Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling after all?
- 4
Opinion I first met Netanyahu in 1988. Here’s how he became the most destructive leader in Israel’s history.
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture I have seen the future of America — in a pastrami sandwich in Queens
-
Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
-
Opinion Gaza and Trump have left the Jewish community at war with itself — and me with a bad case of alienation
-
Fast Forward Trump administration restores student visas, but impact on pro-Palestinian protesters is unclear
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.