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By: JNS
In a survey of 501 Israeli adults, 68% said they supported U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan for relocating the population of the Gaza Strip, Israel’s Channel 12 reported on Monday.
A fifth of respondents in the poll, which has a 4.4% margin of error, said they oppose the plan and another 12% said they weren’t sure.
Defense Minister Israel Katz decided on Monday to establish a directorate for the voluntary departure of Gaza residents, Channel 14 reported.
In a counter-proposal to Trump’s initiative, Egypt is developing a plan to rebuild Gaza without forcing Palestinians out of the Strip, the Associated Press reported Tuesday.
Egypt and Jordan, which Trump suggested would absorb Gazans, have condemned the plan to relocate the population. The Arab League, of which Egypt and Jordan are members, also opposed the plan publicly.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was in Saudi Arabia on Monday in a tour of the region, has said that the United States was up to hearing alternative proposals.
“If the Arab countries have a better plan, then that’s great,” Rubio said Thursday on the American radio program, “The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show.”
According to an AP report, Egyptian officials have been discussing an alternative plan with European diplomats, as well as with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. They are also talking about ways to fund the reconstruction of Gaza.
Earlier this month, Trump announced his relocation plans in a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House. “The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip,” Trump said. “We’ll own it … We have an opportunity to do something that could be phenomenal … the Riviera of the Middle East.”
He later suggested that Gaza’s entire population “should go to other countries of interest with humanitarian hearts, and there are many of them that want to do this, and build various domains that will ultimately be occupied by the 1.8 million Palestinians living in Gaza, ending the death and destruction and, frankly, bad luck.”
In other news, JNS reported that U.S. Congress members took time on Tuesday to recognize day 500 of the Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, when terrorists slaughtered 1,200 people and kidnapped more than 250 others, dragging them into the Gaza Strip.
“500 days ago, Hamas terrorists waged the deadliest assault on the Jewish people since the Holocaust,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said in a statement. “They murdered more than 1,000 men, women and children; kidnapped hundreds more; and committed unspeakable atrocities against innocent people. The excruciating pain experienced on that day was almost unimaginable, and for many, it is still felt just as strongly today as it was 16 months ago.”
“We vow to the families whose loved ones have languished at the hands of Hamas—to Israel and her people, and for those who stand for freedom—that we’ll work to ensure another Oct. 7 never happens again,” he added.
He thanked President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu for securing the most recent release of hostages on Feb. 15, saying he prays that “every hostage held by Hamas returns home soon.”
(JNS.org)
