Trump's Gaza 'clean out' is blatant violation of international law, say experts

US President Donald Trump's plan, proposed on Sunday, to "clean up" the Gaza Strip and have Egypt and Jordan receive displaced Palestinians, is a clear violation of international law, several experts told Middle East Eye. According to international humanitarian law, the large-scale or partial expulsion or forced transfer of a civilian population constitutes a war crime. If such acts are part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population, they constitute crimes against humanity, which aligns with the definition in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) considers this rule to be part of customary international law, binding on all states that have not persistently objected. "President Trump's desire to 'transfer' Palestinians en masse from the occupied Gaza Strip is neither legal nor realistic," said Adi Imseis, a professor of international law at Queen's University and a former UN official. He emphasized that under international humanitarian law and international criminal law, it is prohibited to forcibly transfer or deport protected persons from an occupied territory to the occupying power or any other country, regardless of the motive.

Imseis further explained that the ICRC established this prohibition to prevent occupying powers from usurping and colonizing occupied territories through ethnic cleansing, as Nazi Germany did in some of the territories it occupied during World War II. Similarly, Israeli human rights lawyer Michael Sfard stated, "The prohibition against the displacement of civilians due to war dates back to the American Civil War and is considered an established principle of the law of war."

Some Israeli officials, including far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, expressed support for Trump's proposal, calling it "thinking outside the box" that could allow Palestinians to "build new and good lives" elsewhere. However, Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, condemned Trump and Smotrich's remarks, stating that "ethnic cleansing is never ‘thinking outside the box’, no matter how it is packaged. It is illegal, immoral, and irresponsible.”

Asked about Trump's remarks on Monday, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, Kaja Kallas, said that the EU supports a two-state solution but did not directly mention Trump's statement. She stated, "Gaza and the people of Gaza have suffered a lot. I think both Palestinians and Israelis should have peace, and that's why we really need to move from a ceasefire to a more lasting peace." She added that the EU is ready to redeploy its mission at the Rafah crossing point between Gaza and Egypt to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza.

For Palestinians, calls for mass displacement are reminiscent of the ethnic cleansing during the 1948 creation of Israel, known as the "Nakba" (Catastrophe), when 750,000 people were forced from their homes and became refugees in neighboring countries. Israeli settlers and far-right officials have already advocated plans to forcibly displace Palestinians from large areas of Gaza and replace them with Israeli settlers. When the war broke out 15 months ago, most of the 1.1 million residents in northern Gaza were forced south by Israeli expulsion orders. However, the latest ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas has temporarily halted these plans. On Monday, Palestinians began returning to their homes in the north, but most of those homes have been razed by Israeli bombing.

Imseis said that Trump's idea is "wishful thinking" as the suggestion has been advocated for decades since the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, and the subsequent Israeli war on Gaza. "Anyone with even a basic understanding of the Palestinian question would know that the Palestinian people would never accept being ethnically cleansed from their land, given the history they have lived through," he told Middle East Eye. "Nor would any Arab country accept this, particularly Egypt and Jordan."

Israel’s attacks on Gaza have already displaced more than 90% of the Gaza Strip's 2.4 million population and caused more than 47,000 deaths. Commenting to reporters on Air Force One, Trump said he had spoken with King Abdullah II of Jordan and planned to speak with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi about moving Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip. “I would like to have Egypt take people. I would like to have Jordan take people,” Trump said. “You’re talking about possibly 1.5 million people, and we’re going to clean the whole thing up,” Trump said, referring to Gaza. Trump said Gaza residents could be relocated “temporarily or permanently.” “It’s a demolition site right now, almost everything’s been demolished, and people are dying there,” he said. “So, I’d rather work with some of the Arab nations to build housing in different locations where they can maybe have a more peaceful life.”

Egypt and Jordan are the only two Arab countries bordering occupied Palestine, and both have rejected the proposal. Cairo and Amman have long advocated for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and have consistently rejected the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said on Sunday that the Jordanian government’s position against the forced displacement of Palestinians has not changed. The Egyptian Foreign Ministry also reiterated the same view, expressing its rejection of Palestinian displacement “whether temporarily or permanently,” while Sisi has repeatedly opposed proposals to move Palestinians to the Sinai Peninsula. According to the UN Palestinian refugee agency, Jordan hosts 2.3 million Palestinian refugees, while Egypt hosts tens of thousands.

Today, 5.8 million registered Palestinian refugees live in dozens of camps in the occupied West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. About 80% of the population of Gaza are refugees or descendants of refugees displaced since the 1948 “Nakba” when Israel occupied 78% of historic Palestine. "If any of these people leave the occupied Gaza Strip, they should exercise their right of return and demand, in accordance with international law, their proper restitution and compensation for their lands now in Israel," Imseis said.

A fragile ceasefire has been in effect since January 19. Israel and Hamas completed a second prisoner exchange on Saturday, with Hamas releasing four Israeli female soldiers in exchange for 200 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.