Trump says he is pressing leaders of Arab nations to take in Gaza Palestinians

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 in the Gaza war that he pressed Israel and Hamas to strike.

“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 undercut pressure for Palestinian statehood.

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 had responded. In October 2023, weeks into the Israel-Hamas war that began with Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, 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 peace agreements between Israel and other Arab nations, including the United Arab Emirates, 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 currently less than a week into its six-week first phase. Some on Israel’s far right would like to see Jewish resettlement in Gaza after the war.