Egypt calls emergency Arab summit over US President Donald Trump's Gaza plan to relocate Palestinians

Egypt has announced that it will host an emergency Arab summit to discuss “new and dangerous developments” after US President Donald Trump proposed to resettle Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.

Trump’s suggestion, made at a White House meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week, infuriated the Arab world, including Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia — key allies of Washington.

Israel has expressed openness to the idea while Hamas, the Palestinians and much of the world have rejected it.

Both Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and Jordanian King Abdullah II dismissed Trump’s call to resettle 1.8 million Palestinians and for the US to take ownership of the enclave, but Trump claims that they would eventually accept it.

A statement from Egypt’s Foreign Ministry said it would host the Arab League summit in Cairo on February 27.

Trump’s proposal has moral, legal and practical obstacles.

It may have been proposed as a negotiation tactic by Trump to pressure Hamas or make an opening gambit in discussions aimed at securing a normalisation deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia on Sunday condemned Netanyahu’s recent comment that Palestinians could create their state there.

It said his remarks “aim to divert attention from the successive crimes committed by the Israeli occupation against our Palestinian brothers in Gaza, including the ethnic cleansing they are being subjected to”.

Qatar on Sunday called Netanyahu’s comment “provocative” and a blatant violation of international law.

The war in Gaza, sparked by Hamas’ attack that killed 1200 people and took 250 hostage, has killed more than 47,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not differentiate between fighters and non-combatants in their count.

Much of the territory has been obliterated.