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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Jordan Declares War on Muslim Brotherhood

2025-04-25

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Leonid Tsukanov

[REGNUM] Jordan's political landscape is rapidly changing. Following the revelation of a secret "missile factory" by the security services, the kingdom's authorities have decided to completely ban the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood* group.

The decision was made almost instantly - literally a few days after the publication of details of the defeat of the failed underground missilemen. Most of the country's residents did not question the harsh reaction to the conspiracy.

At the same time, there is a high probability that, in addition to issues of national security, the foreign policy ambitions of official Amman played a role in the final defeat of the Brotherhood.

"BROTHERS" IN JORDAN
The Muslim Brotherhood has been active in Jordan for over eighty years, from the mid-1940s until recently, and was considered a serious political force.

The group had hidden influence over the country's civilian and military elites and even attempted several times to overthrow King Abdullah II.

The royal court responded in kind, with searches and arrests, as well as the temporary closure of individual offices of the group, and tightened control over its financial flows and political course.

However, for most of the time, both forces existed in a state of "cold peace".

Clouds began to gather over the group on April 21, when attacks against the Muslim Brotherhood began to be heard from the rostrum of the Jordanian parliament one after another.

Representatives of various political forces, both those close to the court and those who consider themselves part of the moderate opposition, accused the group of trying to sow discord and plunge Jordanian society into civil war, and to create a new “terrorist enclave” on the territory of the kingdom.

POLITICAL STORM
The accusations were prompted by reports from Jordanian security forces about the arrest in mid-April of a large group of underground fighters affiliated with the Brotherhood.

At an abandoned facility in the northwest of the country (dubbed the "rocket factory"), the conspirators manufactured homemade missiles and UAVs, and stockpiled weapons and explosives, all of which they allegedly intended to use against the authorities soon.

The deputies, clearly impressed by the scale of the secret arsenals, called on the Islamic Action Front (considered the political wing of the Brotherhood) sitting in parliament to publicly condemn the group's activities and even renounce them. Otherwise, the entire faction (31 deputies) risked losing their mandates in one fell swoop "for assisting the conspirators."

And although the speaker of parliament, Ahmad al-Safaadi, tried to soften the emotional attacks of some of his colleagues, the mistrust of the Front did not diminish, even taking into account the fact that some deputies complied with the demands and condemned the course of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The public defeat of the Brotherhood was completed by the Kingdom's Interior Minister Mazen Faraya. At a special briefing on April 23, he announced that due to the attempted anti-government conspiracy, the movement's activities in Jordan were completely banned. Any public support for the group - including online campaigning for it - would henceforth be prosecuted.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s attempts to defuse the crisis and present the activities of the detained underground fighters as “purely independent” and “separated” from all official structures have led to nothing.

THE PALESTINIAN INCIDENT
The Jordanian authorities not only dissolved the organization, but also confiscated its property and closed all its offices in the country.

At least five activists of the movement were detained "pending clarification of the circumstances." However, they were quickly released without any new charges.

It was not only the Muslim Brotherhood that came under attack from official Amman.

In parallel with the closure of the group's offices, Jordanian law enforcement officials began an operation against the Palestinian Hamas.

At least three mid-level Palestinian officials who were in the country legally were arrested in the past 24 hours and taken to al-Jandaweel prison, which has a reputation for being political.

It is also noteworthy that several days before this, several Palestinians from the Islamic Jihad faction were arrested in neighboring Syria.

The arrest was carried out by the authorities under the pretext of the Palestinians' cooperation with "anti-government forces," which shocked them quite a bit: "Islamic Jihad" and other factions felt quite comfortable in Syria not only during the Assad dynasty, but also after its overthrow, and they showed no intention of conflicting with the new Damascus.

PREPARING THE SOIL
Outside observers tend to link the two episodes together and interpret them as preparing the ground for the launch of negotiations on normalizing relations between Syria and Israel in the spirit of the Abraham Accords.

And Jordan, as one of Israel's oldest Arab "friends," is quite capable of playing the role of mediator and providing channels of communication between Damascus and Tel Aviv. Especially since interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa has declared his readiness for détente with the Israelis at least several times.

In addition, Jordan has significant strategic autonomy in organizing the negotiations and has no claims against either the Syrian or Israeli side, and is less focused on the interests of its neighbors. The same Saudi Arabia and Qatar are not in a hurry to get involved in mediation, fearing to cause discontent in Iran and Turkey.

The success of the new “Abrahamic” negotiations will not only raise Jordan’s prestige in the eyes of the US and Israel, but will also open up vast opportunities for the kingdom to strengthen its presence in the Syrian market – primarily in the energy sector, where the Turks currently hold virtually undivided sway.

However, for the successful implementation of such a combination, official Amman needs to keep all internal forces under complete control. In order to quickly extinguish any discontent with the change in the political balance.

And the Muslim Brotherhood, which is under conditional control, as well as the Islamic Action Front affiliated with them (which is also one of the largest consolidated political forces in parliament) could seriously stir up the public. And in a tactical alliance with Hamas, they could also turn the Palestinian communities living in the country against the throne.

Amman does not want to risk the stability of the dynasty for the sake of dubious political benefits, and therefore chose to solve the problem effectively, taking the confrontation with the “Brothers” beyond the political in advance.

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

'Chaos within the kingdom': Jordan's secret service's success hurts rebel prince

2025-04-19

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Leonid Tsukanov

[REGNUM] Recently, Jordan's special services managed to hit the jackpot. In the northwest of the country, an underground workshop for the production of missiles and drones was uncovered and liquidated. The General Intelligence Directorate (GID) captured 16 people. The scandal exposed Jordan's problems, which at first glance seemed forgotten.

And while some are looking for clients abroad or among disgraced political movements, others are turning their gaze to the royal court.

AWAY FROM EVERYONE
Authorities say the plotters planned attacks using missiles and drones and stockpiled explosives to fill them, including C4 and SEMTEX-H plastic explosives.

Moreover, they were clearly not amateurs - the ammunition discovered in underground workshops was clearly created by engineers familiar with the latest trends in rocket engineering.

The production line was set up in the northwest of the country, away from prying eyes.

It was not possible to assess the real scale of production - the underground workers managed to destroy some of the property before the Jordanian security forces launched an assault.

However, an arsenal of several newly manufactured missiles was almost untouched. At least one of them was fully equipped and ready to launch.

And although the flight range of the seized warhead is estimated skeptically (literally ten kilometers), the immediate proximity of the production facilities to the Jordanian-Israeli border greatly increased the risk of an attack on border settlements and checkpoints of the Israeli army from the territory of the kingdom.

THEY BLAMED HAMAS
GID operatives are in no hurry to reveal all their cards and are very vague about the results of the raid. At the official press conference, it was stated that the conspirators had been "under surveillance" since 2021, and active measures against them began last year.

The liquidation of the "rocket factory" was the final stage of a multi-year operation. The nationality of the detainees is also not disclosed. It is only reported that most of the conspirators were Muslims, and some of them were trained in Lebanon.

However, even this fragmentary information was enough for Jordan's neighbors to draw their own conclusions. The Israeli press, which was among the first to learn of the scandal, named Hamas members as the owners of the destroyed underground factory, apparently latching onto the conspirators' Lebanese trips.

Moreover, the Israelis threw a “glove” in Amman’s face, accusing the authorities of “turning a blind eye” to the activities of emissaries of hostile forces on their territory, and the Palestinian refugees living there of preparing new attacks on the territory of the Jewish state.

However, it was mainly opposition media that made such revelations. The right-wing media in Israel, loyal to the government, preferred to present the topic in the most vague way possible and without far-reaching conclusions.

This is understandable: Jordan is still considered by the Israeli government as one of the promising places for resettlement of Gaza residents. However, Amman sees large Palestinian settlements as a hidden threat to the country's stability and is in no hurry to make a deal.

Official Tel Aviv does not want to spoil its own diplomatic game by further inflaming tensions between the royal court and the Palestinian communities.

POSSIBLE "SET-UP"
The Hamas version may be the main one, but it is far from the only one.

The Jordanians themselves are more willing to place the blame on the Muslim Brotherhood* group. True, this version comes from the lips of civil servants; law enforcement officials do not give a clear answer.

The version seems quite coherent. Especially since the representatives of the group (until recently they were a serious political force in the kingdom) have already tried several times in different ways to overthrow King Abdullah II from the throne.

And in 2020, official Amman forced the Muslim Brotherhood* to cease operations in Jordan, thereby publicly insulting them.

Egypt also agrees with the thesis about the involvement of this organization in the conspiracy. True, Cairo balances between the Israeli and Jordanian interpretations of events, recalling that Hamas also emerged at one time as a separate cell within the Brotherhood*, but over time the paths of the two forces diverged.

And with the onset of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, friction began between yesterday's allies. Today's protests in Gaza are being stirred up, among others, by supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood*, and Hamas' counterintelligence has reported at least three arrests of the group's agents of influence in the enclave.

In this regard, Egyptian security officials consider the scandal with the rockets an attempt to frame Hamas and further complicate its position.

THE DISGRACED PRINCE
The scandal has rocked Jordanian society, becoming the biggest in recent years.

Moreover, in the official press release, the intelligence services named the goal of the foiled plot as “damaging national security, chaos and destruction within the kingdom.” So the security forces are directly saying that the target of the hypothetical missile attacks was not Israel at all.

Behind the scenes, for the first time since 2021, the name of the disgraced Prince Hamza ibn Hussein, the younger brother of the Jordanian king and heir to the throne until 2004, was heard again.

Hamza gave way in line to the king's son, Hussein ibn Abdullah, but was believed by many courtiers to have been hurt by his nephew's rapid rise.

Others also say that Hamza fears reprisals after the hypothetical death of his august brother, who has already complained several times about health problems.

It is the king's brother who is considered the main beneficiary of the failed coup of 2021. At that time, the conflict between the royals was quickly resolved, and the prince avoided public accusations of organizing the rebellion, although some of his close associates were imprisoned.

However, from that moment on, his every move has been closely monitored by Jordanian intelligence services, and he himself remains a prisoner of the “golden cage” and almost never leaves his native palace, with the exception of rare public court ceremonies.

The current emphasis in Jordanian law enforcement statements on the events of 2021 is a worrying signal for Hamza. It is possible that the scandal will be used by opponents of the disgraced prince to further push him away from the court and finally deprive him of any claims to the throne.

And here it is not so important who the Jordanian law enforcement officials declare the "owner" of the liquidated underground factory: Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood*. If even an indirect connection with the prince is discovered, his "golden cage" may well become an iron one.

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

IDF: Two Hezbollah members killed in southern Lebanon drone strikes

2025-04-17

[IsraelTimes] Hamas operatives reportedly arrested by Lebanese army in Palestinian refugee camps, amid exposure by Amman of alleged Muslim Brotherhood terror cell said to have trained in Lebanon

Two Hezbollah members were killed in separate Israeli dronezaps in southern Leb
...The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. Only one of those statements is an exaggeration....
on Wednesday, the military said.

The first strike, in southern Lebanon’s Qantara, some seven kilometers from the Israeli border, eliminated a member of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan force, the Israel Defense Forces said.

The second strike targeted another operative in the town of Hanine, some five kilometers from the border.

Lebanon’s health ministry reported that one person was killed in the strike on a vehicle in the area of Wadi al-Hujair, near Qantara, and a second was killed in Hanine.

The IDF also said Wednesday that it had struck the Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon overnight. Lebanese media had reported a series of strikes near the town of Ramyeh, close to the Israeli border.

Meanwhile,
...back at the alley, Slats grabbed for his rosco...
Lebanon’s health ministry reported Wednesday that a 17-year-old had succumbed to wounds sustained the previous day in an Israeli ~~Arclight~~ airstrike
...KABOOM!...
on south Lebanon’s Aitaroun. The death brought the toll of that strike to two, after the IDF said a commander in Hezbollah’s special operations unit was killed in the strike.

Under the terms of a November 27 ceasefire, which ended more than 13 months of war, Hezbollah was required to vacate southern Lebanon, while Israel was permitted to act against what it deemed to be imminent threats from the terror group. Israel, which was required to withdraw its forces from southern Lebanon, has held on to five areas it described as strategic.

The war was sparked when Hezbollah, unprovoked, began launching near-daily attacks on northern Israel on October 8, 2023 — a day after Hamas
Hamas

..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,...
stormed southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages, sparking the war in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
. Israel invaded Lebanon in September in a bid to stop Hezbollah’s attacks, which had displaced some 60,000 northerners.

Hezbollah, whose leadership was decimated in the war, has since lost ground in Lebanon’s domestic politics. In January, the terror group acquiesced to the election of US- and Saudi-backed Lebanese President Joseph Aoun after a two-year vacancy in the post.

Aoun, formerly the commander of Lebanon’s army, has vowed to uphold a state monopoly on arms — a thinly veiled threat to Hezbollah’s extensive arsenal. In an interview published Tuesday by Qatar
...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi...
i-owned outlet The New Arab, Aoun said he would directly coordinate with Hezbollah to achieve that goal in 2025.

LEBANESE ARMY ARRESTS HAMAS OPERATIVES
Meanwhile,
...back at the alley, Slats grabbed for his rosco...
the Saudi al-Hadath news outlet reported Tuesday that the Lebanese army had arrested Hamas operatives in Ain al-Hilweh and Nahr al-Bared, Paleostinian refugee camps situated, respectively, in north and south Lebanon.

The report, which was not immediately confirmed by the Lebanese army, said that a senior Hamas official had requested a meeting with the head of Lebanon’s military intelligence.

The reason for the arrest was unclear. It came after Jordan’s King Abdullah II on Tuesday spoke with Aoun about an alleged yearslong plot by Jordanian members of the Moslem Brüderbund — a Hamas ally and Jordan’s largest opposition group — to attack the Hashemite Kingdom with self-made rockets and drones.

Amman, which on Tuesday announced the arrest of 16 suspects in the case, said they had received training and funding in Lebanon.

An Nahar reports from Lebanon:

Lebanese Army intelligence agents arrested Hamas members at the Ain el-Helweh, Tyre and Nahr al-Bared camps in connection with the plot unveiled in Jordan, military sources told Al-Arabiya’s Al-Hadath channel on Wednesday.

“The Lebanese Army will not allow any involvement in sabotage in Jordan or any Arab country,” the sources said.

“The Lebanese Army will not allow any tampering with the security of the Lebanese south,” the sources added, noting that “a Hamas leader has requested an appointment from the army’s Intelligence Directorate.”

Jordan's intelligence service on Tuesday announced the arrests of 16 people for allegedly planning to target national security and sow "chaos."

Authorities said the suspects were arrested for "manufacturing rockets using local tools as well as tools imported for illegal purposes, possession of explosives and firearms, concealing a rocket ready to be deployed, planning to manufacture drones, and recruiting and training operatives in Jordan as well as training them abroad." Jordanian officials later said that some of the suspects hd received training in Lebanon.

Jordan’s government said the accused have political affiliations and belong to what it called “unlicensed groups,” referring to the Muslim Brotherhood. Jordan’s judiciary dissolved the Muslim Brotherhood in 2020.

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Hamas issues worldwide 'call to arms' to fight Trump's plan to relocate two million Gazans

2025-04-01

Goody. Happy hunting, IDF!

[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] A senior Hamas leader has called for supporters worldwide to pick up weapons and fight Donald Trump's plan to relocate Gazans to neighbouring countries.

'In the face of this sinister plan - one that combines massacres with starvation - anyone who can bear arms, anywhere in the world, must take action,' Sami Abu Zuhri said in a statement on Monday.

'Do not withhold an explosive, a bullet, a knife, or a stone. Let everyone break their silence.'

Abu Zuhri's call comes a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered to let Hamas leaders leave Gaza but demanded that the Palestinian group disarm in the final stages of the war in Gaza.

Netanyahu said Israel was working towards a plan proposed by Trump to displace Gazans to other countries, which could include Egypt and Jordan.

Netanyahu said that after the war, Israel would ensure overall security in Gaza and 'enable the implementation of the Trump plan' - which had initially called for the mass displacement of all 2.4 million people living in the Palestinian territory - calling it a 'voluntary migration plan'.

Trump's plan for the region risks inflaming deep underlying tensions, and has been met with fury from Palestinians and American allies alike. The UN has warned it was tantamount to 'ethnic cleansing'.

But the call from Hamas comes at an uncertain time, with thousands of Gazans defying fear of reprisal to march against the group in anti-war demonstrations.

One protestor was this week alleged to have been kidnapped, tortured and left at his family's doorstep as a warning.

Days after taking office in January, Trump had proposed that Gazans be removed from the territory with no right of return.

He later appeared to backtrack, saying he was 'not forcing' the widely condemned plan for the United States to take over the territory and redevelop it.

Trump said that the U.S. should take control of Gaza to ensure its stability, and suggested the population could be relocated elsewhere, where he said they would be 'better off'.

'The Gaza Strip would be turned over to the US by Israel at the conclusion of fighting' he said.

On February 9, the American president said he was 'committed to buying and owning Gaza'.

Two days later, he told a news conference with Jordan's King Abdullah II: 'We're not going to buy anything.'

'We're going to have it and we're going to keep it and we're going to make sure that there's going to be peace and there's not going to be any problem.'

An AI-generated clip of 'Trump Gaza', redeveloped into the 'Riviera of the Middle East', was then posted to his Truth Social social media platform, met with horror.

The video showed high-rises and beachside resorts, with a giant gold statue of Trump towering over the enclave.

Trump and Netanyahu featured in the AI video, drinking by a pool. The clip was widely condemned as being 'tone deaf'.

Palestinians in Gaza argued the proposal ignores their rights and ties to their ancestral land.

The right of return remains a sensitive issue for Palestinian diaspora displaced by the long conflict with Israel.

About 750,000 Palestinians fled or were forced from their homes on land which became Israel after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

As many as 531 Palestinian towns were razed by Israeli militias by 1949, according to the West Bank-based Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, and thousands were killed in clashes.

Many refugees today remain in camps in neighbouring countries, unable to return to the places they were born.

Outrage at the loss of life in Gaza since Hamas launched its shock October 7, 2023 incursion into Israel saw a rise in support for the group among Palestinians, reflecting anathema towards Israeli policy and lack of progress towards a lasting solution.

This was in spite of the 1,170 lives taken during the massacre, and some 250 hostages taken back into Gaza.

A group of independent human rights experts warned earlier this month that Israel had resumed weaponising starvation in Gaza with the decision to break from the fragile ceasefire agreement and block aid into the Palestinian enclave.

More than 400 Palestinians were killed as Israel resumed its bombardment of the strip on March 18. More than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict since October 2023, the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza reports.

Israel warned its attacks were 'only the beginning'.

Earlier this month, defence minister Israel Katz also threatened to permanently occupy parts of the Gaza Strip unless Hamas releases the hostages still held in captivity.

Since coming to power, Hamas has done little to move towards a lasting solution with Israel, launching attacks across the border that rights groups say have killed civilians and even landed back in Gaza.

'The unpredictable nature of the crude rockets has meant that rockets have struck areas not only inside Israel but also inside Gaza,' Human Rights Watch observed in 2009.

The group has also done little to alleviate poverty in the Gaza Strip, despite receiving plenty of money from foreign backers.

In 2023, it was estimated to have an investment portfolio of real estate and other assets worth $500mn and an annual military budget of $350mn.

But Gaza remains one of the poorest places in the world. In 2023, the GDP per capita for the West Bank and Gaza sat at just $3,372.3 USD.

In recent days, Palestinians have expressed their ire towards the governing group with mass protests in the beleaguered enclave.

Thousands took to the streets in northern Gaza last weeks for days of anti-war protests, many chanting against Hamas.

The protests, which centered mainly on Gaza's north, appeared to be aimed generally against the war, with protesters calling for an end to 17 months of deadly fighting.

In the town of Beit Lahiya, where a similar protest took place Tuesday, about 3,000 people demonstrated, with many chanting 'the people want the fall of Hamas.' In the hard-hit Shijaiyah neighborhood of Gaza City, dozens of men chanted 'Out, out out! Hamas get out!'

'Our children have been killed. Our houses have been destroyed,' said Abed Radwan, who said he joined the protest in Beit Lahiya 'against the war, against Hamas, and the (Palestinian political) factions, against Israel and against the world's silence.'

Ammar Hassan, who gave his name after taking part in a protest on Tuesday, said it started as an anti-war protest with a few dozen people but swelled to more than 2,000, with people chanting against Hamas.

'It's the only party we can affect,' he said by phone. 'Protests won't stop the (Israeli) occupation, but it can affect Hamas.'

The militant group has violently cracked down on previous protests. This time no outright intervention was apparent, perhaps because Hamas is keeping a lower profile since Israel resumed its war against it.

Hamas was then accused of torturing a Palestinian protestor to death and leaving him on his family's doorstep as a warning.

Uday al-Rabbay was reportedly kidnapped by the terror group amid the swell of anti-Hamas actions taken by the people of the Gaza Strip, who have in the last week been seen begging the organisation to give up control.

Mazen Shat, a senior police officer affiliated with Fatah from Ramallah and a vocal critic of Hamas, told The Telegraph Uday had been tortured for four hours, and was left with open wounds and bruising.

'Uday was martyred by the criminals of Hamas. And what's his crime? He told the truth, because he refused to be silent on injustice, because he did not kneel to Hamas.

'Hamas is oppressing people in a brutal way. Like a puppy on a rope around his neck, they dragged him to the door of his house and told his family that this is the punishment for those who complain about Hamas.'

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

After pledge to Trump, Jordan evacuates first group of Gazan kids for medical care

2025-03-05

[IsraelTimes] Amman says over 30 Palestinian children ‘suffering various illnesses’ have arrived in kingdom to be treated as part of ‘initiative that the king spoke about in Washington’

Jordan on Tuesday evacuated the first group of Paleostinian children in need of medical treatment from the war-battered Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
Strip under a plan the king presented to US President Donald Trump
...The cad! Twice caught beating wimmin!...
last month.

Images aired by state TV channel al-Mamlaka showed Jordanian military helicopters arriving at a military airport in Amman carrying four injured children and their families.

The children, two of them amputees, were taken to hospital upon arrival.

Government front man Mohammad Momani told a news conference that the first group "of the Gazook children suffering various illnesses began arriving."

Momani said it was the start of the "implementation of the initiative that the king spoke about in Washington."

In his White House visit last month, King Abdullah II told Trump: "One of the things that we can do right away is take 2,000 children, cancer children who are in a very ill state. That is possible."

Later on Tuesday, another 29 children accompanied by 44 adults were brought into Jordan by land, a military front man said.

Ambulances carrying them entered via the King Hussein Bridge crossing, also known as Allenby Bridge crossing, between the Israeli-controlled West Bank and Jordan.

Ahmad Shehada, 13, told AFP he was eager to "get my life back" after a serious injury.

The boy, whose father and other relatives died in the war sparked by the Hamas
Hamas

..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
-led terror onslaught on October 7, 2023,, said he had gone to get water when "a helicopter dropped a strange object, and it went kaboom! on us."

Shehada lost an arm and "traveled to Jordan to have a (prosthetic) limb fitted," he said.

The war has killed over 48,000 people in Gaza and left more than 100,000 maimed, according to unverified figures from the Hamas-ruled territory’s health ministry, which do not differentiate between fighters and non-combatants.

Israel says it has killed some 20,000 combatants in battle as of January and another 1,600 holy warriors inside Israel on October 7, during which some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — were killed and 251 kidnapped to Gaza.

Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.

Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 410. The toll includes a police officer killed in a hostage rescue mission and two Defense Ministry civilian contractors.

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

'Let's see how tough they are': Trump fails to convince Jordan to accept his plan

2025-02-13

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Kirill Semenov

[REGNUM] The first Arab leader to meet Donald Trump at the White House since the start of the US president's second term was Jordan's King Abdullah II. The meeting was a major test for the Jordanian monarch.

Trump continued to pressure Abdullah and his government to accept displaced Palestinians from Gaza, take control of the Strip and begin rebuilding it to become a “Middle Eastern Riviera.”

The king was forced to defend the position of his country and even the entire Arab world, to prevent the expulsion of the Palestinians, but at the same time not to spoil relations with the American president. And it seems he succeeded.

At the meeting, Trump confirmed that the US would “take over” and “own” Gaza, and that the Palestinians living there would be relocated elsewhere without the right to return. Arab countries and others have already compared this proposal to ethnic cleansing.

"It's not a difficult task," Trump said on Tuesday. "Because the United States will control this piece of land — this fairly large piece of land — the Middle East will have stability for the first time," the American president noted.

Abdullah II complimented the American president during the talks. For example, he emphasized that a just peace requires US leadership, and President Trump is a man of peace who played a key role in achieving a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

Nevertheless, the king made it clear to the American administration that Amman was against the displacement of Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank. He stressed that there was a unified Arab position against displacement and made it clear that the reconstruction of Gaza without displacing its residents should be “a priority for everyone.”

In addition, Abdullah II noted that Jordan does not intend to back down from its demands for the creation of a Palestinian state, and a fair peace based on a two-state solution is the only way to achieve stability in the region. Thus, he disavowed Trump's assertion that the transfer of Gaza under American control would allegedly solve all the problems of the Middle East.

According to Abdullah, Jordan's interests, its stability and the protection of Jordanians are above all else for him. And this statement, which seems trivial for any head of state, is especially important in the context of Trump's plans.

In Jordan, Palestinian refugees make up a quarter of the country's population, but overall, Jordanians of Palestinian descent make up more than half of the kingdom's residents. For example, Queen Rania is also a Jordanian Palestinian.

At one time, the Palestinians even tried to overthrow the current king's father during the events known as "Black September." Then the army and the only legal political party in the country at that time, the Muslim Brotherhood*, were able to save King Hussein by joining forces with the military.

In September 1970, at a critical time during the Palestinian PLO uprising in Amman, when the survival of the Jordanian state was at stake, the Muslim Brotherhood* took up arms in support of the ruling house and managed to bring its supporters onto the streets.

But now the conditions have changed: instead of the secular Palestinian organizations that the Muslim Brotherhood opposed, the most influential Palestinian organization is the Muslim Brotherhood's* ally, the Islamic movement Hamas.

Against the backdrop of events in Gaza and the growing popularity of Hamas, the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood* has already won the parliamentary elections in September 2024. Therefore, Abdullah II’s agreement with Trump’s plan now will look like complicity in a “second Nakba.” And this means raising almost the entire Jordanian street against the king and provoking a new “Arab Spring.”

In recent days, Jordan has seen constant demonstrations against the "displacement", and Muslim Brotherhood* members of parliament are already proposing to pass the "Bill for the Prevention of Displacement of Palestinians".

“I think we have to remember that Egypt and the Arab countries have a plan,” Abdullah said when President Trump asked him to speak. “[Crown Prince] Mohammed bin Salman is inviting us to talks in Riyadh. I think the point is how do we make this work in a way that is good for everyone,” the Jordanian king continued.

Indeed, Saudi Arabia is keen to have such an exchange, as Trump's plan already threatens to make relations between Riyadh and Washington even more difficult than they were under Biden, which was then thought to be at its lowest point since the 1970s.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman may already be regretting his bet on Trump's return, refusing to deal with the previous administration in the hope of constructive dialogue with the new American leadership.

When Trump revealed his plan to “own and control Gaza” after expelling the Palestinians, he went further and made it clear that the bill for the “cleanup” operation would not be paid by the Americans, but by the Gulf states, by which he meant primarily Saudi Arabia.

This finally threw Riyadh off its emotional balance, as the Saudis had previously tried not to take Trump's statements to heart that the kingdom "must" invest hundreds of billions of dollars in the US to maintain good relations. And this figure was brought up to 1 trillion in the American leader's subsequent statements.

Trump, however, boasted on February 5 that Saudi Arabia would normalize relations with Israel without a Palestinian state, presenting it as his own victory in changing the kingdom's viewpoint. And that was Riyadh's main condition.

It took the Saudis just 45 minutes to respond with what they called a “morning statement” that left little room for maneuver. Specifically, it noted that Saudi Arabia would continue its efforts to establish an independent Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem and would not establish relations with Israel unless that demand was met.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu added fuel to the fire when he told Channel 14 that the Saudis could create a Palestinian state in Saudi Arabia: “They have a lot of land there.” This sparked a fresh wave of condemnation of both Israel and Trump’s plans from the Arab world, including Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Qatar, Kuwait and even the UAE.

The UAE Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it "categorically rejects any attacks on the inalienable rights of Palestinians and any attempts to transfer them" to other countries.

Saudi Arabia responded even more harshly, calling the Israeli leadership’s mentality “extremist and occupational,” and the connection of the “brotherly Palestinian people to the Palestinian land” as undeniable. It emphasized that Palestinians have a right to their land and “are not criminals or immigrants who can be expelled whenever the brutal Israeli occupation so desires.”

The meeting between Abdullah and Trump comes as the recent ceasefire in Gaza is in danger of collapsing. Israel has already threatened to resume bombing and attacks on Gaza on Saturday unless Hamas releases all prisoners.

Trump also threatened Hamas leaders that if they did not release the remaining Israeli prisoners held in the enclave by Saturday, he would support a new Israeli operation.

"I personally don't think they're going to make it on time," Trump said. " They want to play tough guys. We'll see how tough they are." He added that he would not accept a slower prisoner exchange: "Either they release them by 12 o'clock Saturday or all bets are off."

As Igor Subbotin, an international observer and Middle East specialist, told Regnum, Washington has begun to advance its plans for the future of Gaza without due consideration and in extreme haste, doing nothing to begin the second stage of the humanitarian deal between Israel and Hamas. The need for appropriate negotiations on this issue has remained somewhere on the periphery of general discussions.

According to the analyst, the US essentially demonstrated that the extradition of the remaining prisoners to Israel should happen on its own, while the problem of extending the ceasefire in Gaza lies precisely in Trump's plans to evict the Palestinians from the sector, which convinced Hamas that they simply wanted to raze them to the ground after the deal was implemented. In turn, as the expert notes, there were also enough reasons for Hamas to refuse to resume the prisoner exchange process.

Subbotin believes that by demanding that Israel fulfill the terms of the deal in exchange for continued prisoner transfers, Hamas decided to retain its levers of control over the political process.

Recall that Hamas accused Israel of continuing shelling and preventing the return of refugees to the northern part of the Gaza Strip. Also, according to the movement, the delivery of agreed humanitarian aid is being blocked. In connection with this, Hamas decided to postpone the transfer of prisoners who were supposed to be released on Saturday, February 15, until the Israelis fulfill their obligations.

Thus, the Arab summit on Gaza, scheduled for February 27, which was initiated by Egypt in response to Trump's proposals and at which an alternative plan for the reconstruction of Gaza is to be announced, is in question. Now everything depends on whether the ceasefire in Gaza can be maintained or whether the parties will again enter into armed confrontation, worsening the humanitarian crisis.

***

It is clear that Trump’s hasty and premature steps were poorly thought out and could lead the Middle East into a new crisis. The US President has returned the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the center of international discourse, and now, in the event of a renewed war in Gaza, Hamas will have a serious psychological advantage and support from Arab countries.

Other narratives will prevail, centered not on the humanitarian catastrophe, but on the resilience of the Palestinians, who in the latest round of confrontation are fighting not only Israel, but also the United States. Trump has done everything to ensure that no one has any doubts that Washington is complicit in the actions of the Israeli army against the Palestinians.

And, as Israeli experts themselves note, Trump has already contributed to the formation of a new sense of Arab unity – not only to protect the Palestinians, but also, first and foremost, to protect Arab states from the conflict spilling over into their territory.

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

DM liveblog: Jordan's King Abdullah agrees to accept Palestinian kids after Trump's threat to massively slash aid to the country

2025-02-12

[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] President Donald Trump said that his plan to take over the Gaza strip is 'going to work out' alongside King Abdullah II of Jordan at the White House.

However, Abdullah demurred when he was put on the spot about Trump's Middle Eastern Riviera plan, saying 'let's wait until the Egyptians' have a chance to respond when asked about the president's ideas.

Abdullah did commit to accepting 2,000 sick Palestinian children into Jordan.

Last night, Trump threatened to cut off aid to Jordan and Egypt if the countries don't accept Palestinians from Gaza.

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

US officials defend Trump’s call to relocate Gazans from ‘uninhabitable plot of land’

2025-02-05

[IsraelTimes] Trump thinks it’s ‘inhumane’ to force people to live there while it is being rebuilt, wants to work with partners on creative solutions, source says; Rafah resident: ‘Delusional’

US officials on Tuesday defended President Donald Trump
...dictatorial for repealing some (but not all) of the diktats of his predecessor, misogynistic because he likes pretty girls, homophobic because he doesn't think gender bending should be mandatory, truly a man for all seasons...
’s suggestion that more Paleostinians in war-shattered Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
relocate to neighboring countries, insisting he was trying to look at the problem realistically and not imposing a solution.

Previewing Trump’s White House talks later on Tuesday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the bigwigs sought to soften what was widely seen as Trump’s call for mass displacement of Gazooks from the enclave, which Arab states and Paleostinian leaders have vehemently rejected.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity
... for fear of being murdered...
, stressed that the US wants to work with its Arab partners and Israel to come up with creative solutions to the challenge.

The suggestion that Trump made last month echoed the wishes of Israel’s far-right, and contradicted former president Joe The Big Guy Biden
...46th president of the U.S. The very model of probity....
’s commitment against mass resettlement of Paleostinians.

The officials stopped short of explicitly reiterating Trump’s call for Jordan and Egypt to take in more Gazooks, but also did not retract his suggestion.

"President Trump looks at the Gaza Strip and sees it as a demolition site, sees it as impractical for it to be rebuilt within three to five years, believes it will take at least 10 to 15 and thinks it is inhumane to force people to live in an uninhabitable plot of land with unwent kaboom! ordnances and rubble," one bigwig told news hounds.

Trump "is looking for solutions to help the people of Gaza have normal lives while the Gaza Strip is being rebuilt, and he is trying to look at this in a realistic way," the official added.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi spoke with Jordan’s King Abdullah II on Tuesday, stressing the need to adopt a united position that would help achieve regional peace.

According to Sissi’s office, the phone call addressed "developments in the region," including the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and the need for "the rapid reconstruction" of the territory.

The two leaders "stressed the need to commit to the united Arab position calling for reaching permanent peace in the Middle East," the Egyptian presidency said in a statement.

Egypt and Jordan, both key US allies, have been under pressure to accept Trump’s proposal to "clean out" the Strip by sending Paleostinians to their territories, either temporarily or permanently.

Cairo and Amman have issued repeated strong rejections while making overtures to their Washington ally.

King Abdullah on Sunday accepted an invitation to visit the White House later this month, a day after Sissi and Trump exchanged mutual invitations for state visits.

Sissi had told Trump the world was "counting on" him for a "permanent and historic peace agreement" to end the conflict between Paleostinians and Israelis, calling him a "man of peace."

The United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia

...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula, largely made up of sand and oil rigs. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual haj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Formerly dictatorial and steeped in Olde Tyme Religion, deferring to Salafist holy men on all issues, it has now done a 180 and is making a serious effort to modernize, so as not to be left in the sand by its Gulf Arab neighbors. The holy men have been shoved to the background and the nation is now still dictatorial but somewhat rational. That doesn't make them trustworthy, but it's a start...
and Qatar
...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi...
have also voiced opposition to any forced displacement of Paleostinians, while stressing the need to implement a two-state solution to the protracted conflict.

Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi has said that "any discussion of an alternate homeland... is rejected," while Cairo has repeatedly called the issue a "red line" that would threaten its national security.

Five Arab foreign ministers and a senior Paleostinian official sent a joint letter to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio
...The diminutive 13-year-old Republican U.S. Senator from Florida, Secretary of State in the second Trump administration...
on Monday, urging the Trump administration to back a two-state solution and rejecting suggestions that residents be resettled.

Many Paleostinians have been incensed by Trump’s remarks suggesting Gazooks should relocate.

"Trump thinks Gaza is a pile of garbage — absolutely not," Rafah resident Hatem Azzam, 34, told AFP, attacking Trump’s choice of words when he told news hounds last week of his plan to "clean out the whole thing."

Calling him "delusional," Azzam said Trump "wants to force Egypt and Jordan to take in ~~migrants~~ colonists, as if they were his personal farm."

"Trump and Netanyahu must understand the reality of the Paleostinian people and the people of Gaza. This is a people deeply rooted in their land — we will not leave," Azzam said.

Ihab Ahmed, another Rafah resident, claimed that Trump and Netanyahu "still don’t understand the Paleostinian people" and their attachment to the land.

"We will remain on this land no matter what. Even if we have to live in tents and on the streets, we will stay rooted in this land," the 30-year-old said.

Ahmed told AFP that Paleostinians had learned lessons from Israel’s 1948 War of Independence. At the time, after rejecting the UN’s partition plan for two states, multiple Arab armies attacked the nascent Jewish state. In the ensuing war, hundreds of thousands of Paleostinians fled or were driven out of their homes and never allowed to return.

"The world must understand this message: We will not leave, as happened in 1948."

Standing near crumbling building blocks destroyed by war in the northern Gaza city of Jabalia, Raafat Kalob was concerned about the consequences that Tuesday evening’s Trump-Netanyahu meeting will have on his life.

"I expect Netanyahu’s visit to Trump to reflect his future plans to forcibly displace the Paleostinian people and redraw the Middle East," he said. "I sincerely hope this plan does not succeed."

Behind him, rows of tents provided by charity organizations lined a patch of land at the foot of concrete buildings whose facades still bear marks of war: bullet holes, blown away windows and facades stripped of their stone finishing.

The war broke out on October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas
..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...
-led turbans broke through the border and carried out massacres in southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people and kidnapping 251 to Gaza.

In Jabalia and Gaza’s north, areas that were hit particularly hard in the war, displaced Paleostinians who returned after a ceasefire took effect on January 19 have taken residence in tents next to their destroyed homes.

Some were nevertheless optimistic, like Majid al-Zebda, a 50-year-old resident of Jabalia.

Trump "will pressure Netanyahu to end this war" permanently, he said.

The first phase of the ceasefire brought a fragile end to fighting in Gaza and started the process of a hostage and prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas, but negotiations have yet to begin for a permanent end to the war.

Trump envoy Witkoff: ‘Preposterous’ to think Gaza reconstruction will take only 5 years

[IsraelTimes] US President Donald Trump’s Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff criticizes the ceasefire and hostage release plan put together by former US President Joe Biden, which is currently in place, taking particular issue with the proposal’s envisioning of a five-year reconstruction period for Gaza.

“Part of the problem is that it wasn’t such a wonderful agreement that was first signed. That was not dictated by the Trump administration. We had nothing to do with it. Now we’re working within that rubric, and we’re figuring things out,” Witkoff tells reporters outside the White House.

“What [I] and the national security adviser are identifying — which, by the way, President Trump identified — is that phase three, the reconstruction, is not going to go the way that the agreement talks about, which is a five-year program. It’s physically impossible. We’re trying to be transparent with these people,” he says.

“In any city in the USA, if you had damage that was 1/100th of what I saw in Gaza… nobody would be allowed to go back to their homes. That’s how dangerous it is,” Witkoff explains.

“There are 30,000 unexploded munitions; there are buildings that could tip over at any moment; there are no utilities there whatsoever; no working water, electric, gas — nothing. God knows what kind of disease might be festering there,” he continues.

“If you go to Gaza today… you see people going there, picking up a tent, and in some circumstances, turning right around again, because there is nothing left there,” Witkoff says.

“When the president talks about ‘cleaning [Gaza] out,’ he talks about making it habitable. This is a long-range plan. They dug tunnels underneath there that degraded the stone that would form foundations. We have to examine that… You do it with subterranean surveys,” Witkoff says.

“We estimate that the disposal effort alone in Gaza [will take] three to five years… before… you get a master plan done. The president is intent on getting it all done correctly. To me, it is unfair to have explained to Palestinians that they might be back in five years. That’s just preposterous,” he adds.

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Trump invites Jordan’s Abdullah to White House while pushing him to take in Gazans

2025-02-03

[IsraelTimes] As US president repeatedly touts plan to ‘clean out’ Gaza, urges Jordan and Egypt to take in displaced Palestinians, kingdom has joined other Arab states in flatly rejecting idea

Jordan’s King Abdullah II has accepted an invitation to visit the White House and meet US President Donald Trump
...His ancestors didn't own any slaves...
later this month, the Jordanian royal palace said on Sunday.

It will be their first in-person meeting since Trump returned to the White House and began floating the idea to "clean out" the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
Strip and resettle Gazooks elsewhere, proposing Egypt and Jordan. Both states have flatly rejected any such proposal, as have others in the region, despite Trump’s insisting, "They will do it."

Trump said last week he had spoken with Abdullah, and had told the king, "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."

When asked if this was a temporary or long-term suggestion, Trump said: "Could be either."

"You’re talking about probably a million and half people, and we just clean out that whole thing. You know, over the centuries it’s had many, many conflicts, that site. And I don’t know, something has to happen," Trump said, in remarks to news hounds on Air Force One.

During meetings with European officials in Brussels on Wednesday, King Abdullah reiterated "Jordan’s unwavering opinion on the necessity of establishing Paleostinians on their land and gaining their legitimate rights, in accordance with the two-state solution."

Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi similarly said on Monday that "any discussion on an alternate homeland [for the Paleostinians]... is rejected."

On Saturday, top diplomats from Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia

…she and her cousin-husband Nazir al-Tamimi are members of the infamous al-Tamimi clan from the village of Nabi Salih near Ramallah in the West Bank that has for several generations waged war, both kinetic and propaganda as opportunity and individual temperament require, against Israel’s Jews. Dear Ahlam regularly worked as a scout and escape driver for Hamas, then moved in front of a TV camera to report on the exciting events she had just been involved in. Possibly Nizar is also a Hamasnik, but other relatives belong to Fatah or the PLO in general, so there are lots of possibilities. Nizar was deported to Qatar the last time Donald Trump was president…

The short message on Telegram, citing "sources," did not include any further information.

Advocates for terror victims’ rights have long sought Tamimi’s extradition from Jordan to the United States for her role in the murder of two US citizens in the 2001 suicide kaboom of the Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem, which killed 16 Israeli civilians, including seven children and a pregnant woman.

She has been living in Jordan since her release from Israeli prison in 2011, when she was among the 1,027 prisoners released in exchange for the release by Hamas of kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

In 2022, Interpol dropped a warrant for Tamimi’s arrest, but the US still offers a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to her arrest or conviction.

Jordan reportedly warns it could extradite Sbarro bombing mastermind to US for trial
[IsraelTimes] In reversal, Amman said to give Hamas one day to find Ahlam Tamimi another home or it will send her stateside, where she is wanted over 2001 attack that killed 16, including 2 Americans.

Jordan’s King Abdullah to meet Trump at the White House on Feb. 11

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

‘They will do it, okay?’: Trump insists on Jordan, Egypt taking in Gazans

2025-02-01

[IsraelTimes] ‘We do a lot for them, and they’re gonna do it,’ says US president, whose envoy Witkoff says Gaza rebuild could take 10 to 15 years: ‘There is nothing left standing’

”Nice countries youse guys got there,” Trump added gently. “Sure would be a shame if something happened to your kneecaps.”

UNBELIEVABLE, WATCH 🔴

Trump says Egypt and Jordan will be taking in Palestinians

REPORTER: The president and the king of Jordan have both said that they, won't take in, displaced people from Gaza like you suggested. Is there anything you can do to make them do that? I mean,… pic.twitter.com/tsnQjC42fT
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) January 30, 2025

US President Donald Trump
...The man who was so stupid he beat fourteen professional politicians, a former tech CEO, and a brain surgeon for the Republican nomination in 2016, then beat The Smartest Woman in the World in the general election. Then he beat Kamala while dodging bullets...
insisted on Thursday that Jordan and Egypt will support a proposal to resettle Paleostinians in their countries rather than in a rebuilt Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
Strip, despite flat refusals from both countries to consider the move.

"They will do it. They will do it. They’re gonna do it, okay? We do a lot for them, and they’re gonna do it," Trump said when asked about the proposal during a photo op in the Oval Office.

Both countries have been getting paid a noticeable portion of their annual national budgets to keep the peace treaty signed way back when. President Trump is redefining refusal to accept Gazans — after Hamas promised to repeat 10/7 repeatedly until Israel is conquered — as a refusal to keep the peace treaty.

Both Egyptian President Abdel Fatah el-Sissi and Jordan’s King Abdullah explicitly rejected the proposal on Wednesday.

Wednesday was a long time ago in Trump time. Another hundred or more presidential executive orders have been signed since then — and ditto by the new temporary and Senate-approved department secretaries and sub-secretaries — entirely changing the landscape at home and abroad. Did y’all notice that pretty much all government spending is being frozen pending review independent of the work the DOGE group is doing? Funding and projects heading in your direction are included in that…

"Regarding what is being said about the displacement of Paleostinians, it can never be tolerated or allowed because of its impact on Egyptian national security," Sissi said.

Trump said earlier this week that the issue would be discussed with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he travels to Washington next week.

Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, who has spent the past week on a diplomatic trip around the region, including a visit to Gaza during his larger trip to Israel, told Axios Thursday that there is "almost nothing left" of the Strip and rebuilding the war-ravaged enclave could take 10 to 15 years.

"People are moving north to get back to their homes and see what happened and turn around and leave... There is no water and no electricity. It is stunning just how much damage occurred there," Witkoff told the US news website after visiting Gaza.

Witkoff also told Axios he has not discussed with Trump the idea of moving Paleostinians from Gaza.

A UN damage assessment released this month showed that clearing over 50 million tons of rubble left in the aftermath of Israel’s campaign could take 21 years and cost up to $1.2 billion.

"There has been this perception we can get to a solid plan for Gaza in five years, but it’s impossible. This is a 10- to 15-year rebuilding plan," Witkoff said.

"There is nothing left standing. Many unwent kaboom! ordnances. It is not safe to walk there. It is very dangerous. I wouldn’t have known this without going there and inspecting," he added.

The debris is believed to be contaminated with asbestos, with some refugee camps struck during the war known to have been built with the material. The rubble also likely contains human remains. The Hamas
..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,...
-run Gaza health ministry estimates that 10,000 bodies are missing under the debris.

’A BUSINESSMAN’S APPROACH’
Hailing Witkoff’s role in the hostage negotiations, US Secretary of State style='border-bottom-width:1px;border-bottom-style:dotted;border-bottom-color:gray;' title='Marco Rubio'>Marco Rubio
...The diminutive 13-year-old Republican U.S. Senator from Florida, Secretary of State in the second Trump administration...
told the Megyn Kelly Podcast on Thursday that Trump has "brought a businessman’s approach to a very delicate and intractable foreign policy challenge and delivered a ceasefire that obviously has tenuous and long-term challenges to it, but there are hostages being released every day. That didn’t happen for over a year-and-a-half."

Rubio added that Witkoff "brought the same kind of business approach to some of these challenges."

Rubio was asked later during the interview whether he believes the American citizens slated to be released in the first phase of the hostage deal will indeed go free, and what the United States will do if they do not.

"I expect we will [see the hostages go free] because that’s the agreement that was made," he said. "The core problem here remains... that as long as there is an entity like Hamas, [whose] express purpose is the destruction of the Jewish state, who is willing to commit horrifying atrocities against civilians, against teenage girls at a concert and do the things that they’ve done, and take hostages for a year-and-a-half — babies and elderly — and murder, and all the things that they did, that’s a threat to Israel’s national security."

"What country in the world can be expected to live alongside an enemy that is armed, capable and willing to commit horrifying atrocities? You can’t. So I think that the ceasefire is important because it brought an end to the destruction and allowed some of the hostages to be freed — at an extraordinary cost," Rubio continued, referring to the release of Paleostinian security prisoners.

"Think how unfair that trade is, but it tells you how much we value life compared to how the other side, the Hamas animals, view this," he said.

"The real challenge is going to be when the ceasefire period expires. Who is going to govern Gaza? Who’s going to rebuild Gaza? Who’s going to be in charge of Gaza? Because if the people who are in charge of Gaza are the same guys that created October 7, then we still have the same problem," Rubio said, referring to the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023 that killed some 1,200 people and saw 251 hostages taken, sparking the war in Gaza.

Rubio also said that the developments in the Middle East, such as the strengthening of the Lebanese government, the fall of Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Horror of Homs...
in Syria and the weakening of Hezbollah and Iran, open the door "to things like a deal between Saudi Arabia

Hopefully this, from Wednesday, will not dent Trump’s leverage:

EU earmarks 3 billion euros in financing, investments for Jordan in new ‘strategic’ partnership

[Israel Times] The European Union promises 3 billion euros ($3.1 billion) of financing and investments for Jordan as part of a new “strategic” partnership.

“With the current geopolitical shifts and growing crises in the region, strengthening the EU-Jordan partnership is the right decision at the right time,” European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen says.

Jordan’s King Abdullah II was in Brussels to oversee the signing of the agreement, which runs from 2025 through 2027.

“Jordan is playing a critical role to consolidate the ceasefire in Gaza and the EU acknowledges the importance of Jordan as a regional hub for humanitarian assistance,” von der Leyen says.

“Jordan’s leadership in supporting Syria’s transition highlights its pivotal role in shaping the region’s future.”

Link

Home Front: WoT

Arab Americans for Trump chair blasts president’s ‘wild’ call to relocate Gazans; Palestinians, Jordan, Egypt also reject it

2025-01-27

President Trump is clearly over the target.

[IsraelTimes] Bishara Bahbah says Palestinians need not leave Gaza for reconstruction to take place, suggests relocation idea was by aides who are far more hawkish than the president

The chairman of a group that lobbied Arab and Moslem Americans to vote for Donald Trump
...So far he's been unkillable, and they've tried....
in the recent election came out strongly on Sunday against the US president’s call for Jordan and Egypt to take in Paleostinians from war-torn Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
"We categorically reject the president’s suggestion that the Paleostinians in Gaza be moved — apparently forcefully — to either Egypt or Jordan," Arab Americans for Trump chairman Bishara Bahbah told The Times of Israel.

"What the Paleostinians need right now is a continuation of the ceasefire, more aid, a reconstruction plan and for the Paleostinian Authority to take over the Gaza Strip," he said.

The PA will not be taking over Gaza — they’ve already demonstrated conclusively they are not capable of holding it, so what would be the point?

"We don’t need wildish claims or statements relating to the fate of the Paleostinians. The only resolution to the Israel-Paleostine question is a two-state solution. Period," added Bahbah, who did not provide his organization’s size but insisted that it played a central role in electing Trump and represents a majority of the views of the 3.8 million Arab Americans.

There may be a Palestinian state someday, but probably not in this generation. The Palestinians need to grow up quite a bit before they are ready to take on the responsibilities of self rule.

After this story was published, Sam Yono, an Iraqi-American community activist asserted to The Times of Israel that Bahbah "only represents himself, not the Arab-Americans who worked with the Trump campaign in Michigan."

Asked for his thoughts on Trump’s comments regarding Gaza, Yono acknowledged that he wasn’t particularly familiar with the issue but that he trusted the president’s judgement.

Trump did win a plurality of the Arab and Moslem vote in Michigan, flipping a swing state that former US president Joe The Big Guy Biden
...46th president of the U.S. This Is A Man That Does Not Seem Demented...
won in 2020.

While Trump told news hounds Saturday the relocation of Paleostinians that he currently envisions could be temporary, Bahbah doesn’t buy that would be the case. "There is nothing that is temporary."

"This is not what we voted for as Arab Americans for Trump," he said, adding that his group still greatly appreciates Trump’s effort in securing the long-elusive Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal.

"He promised us an end to the wars, a lasting peace in the Middle East, which is satisfactory to all parties," Bahbah continued. "This might be satisfactory to [far-right Israeli politicians Itamar] Ben Gvir and [Bezalel] Smotrich, but it’s not satisfactory to the Paleostinians and the Arabs."

Asked how the idea Trump raised may have come about, he speculated that Trump saw pictures of Gaza’s devastation and determined that it needed to be "swept from end to end."

However,
Caliphornia hasn't yet slid into the ocean, no matter how hard it's tried...
Bahbah argued the reconstruction process could be done gradually and that Paleostinians need not be forced to leave the Strip for it to take place.

He claimed that Trump’s advisers are far "more hawkish" than the president and are counseling him accordingly.

"They’re absolutely hawkish to the point where they’ve told me not to talk to them about a two-state solution and to come up with any other alternative. But there is none," Bahbah asserted.

He declined to name the aforementioned aides, but his group put out a separate statement saying many of Trump’s Arab and Moslem appointees are "old timers who played little role in his reelection or who are little aware of the communities’ priorities and concerns."

"The president has said to me that he supports a two-state solution. He has also said that he doesn’t care whether it’s one state or two states, but apparently, some of these advisors are getting to him and putting ideas in his mind," he maintained.

The Arab Americans for Trump chair speculated that pushback from Egypt, Jordan, the PA and the international community will lead to the shelving of Trump’s proposal.

Both Jordan and the PA quickly denounced the proposal.

"But if he doubles down, the Arab world has money to make up for US aid," Bahbah added, referring to the massive amounts of aid that Washington provides to Egypt and Jordan that could well be used as leverage to coax them into taking in Paleostinians.

A brilliant idea. The Arab nation can well afford to support their poorer members without involving Uncle Sugar.

Trump said Saturday that he’d like to see Jordan, Egypt and other Arab nations increase the number of Paleostinian refugees they are accepting from the Gaza Strip — potentially moving out enough of the population to "just clean out" the war-torn area and create a virtual clean slate.

The proposal has to date been a red line for Arab states, particularly Jordan and Egypt, which have viewed the mass migration of Paleostinians to their countries as a potential existential threat. They have pointed to Israel’s refusal to publicly commit to allowing any Paleostinians who leave the Strip to later return, and don’t want to be seen as complicit in an exile of Paleostinians.

The fear of being unable to return has also deterred many Paleostinians from leaving. Over 100,000 Gazooks did succeed in entering Egypt, though they were forced to pay exorbitant to do so and have largely not received any assistance upon arrival, as Cairo refuses to recognize them as refugees.

The Biden administration also initially considered the idea of temporarily relocating some of the population early on in the war, as it sought to move Paleostinians out of harm’s way, but so adamant were Jordan and Egypt in their refusal that it quickly shelved the notion.

But Trump, known for often snubbing traditional foreign policy norms, sought to bring back the idea of mass Paleostinian migration to neighboring countries on Saturday as his new administration tries to sustain the nascent ceasefire in Gaza and plan for the Strip’s reconstruction, while over two million people remain in a territory overwhelmingly destroyed by the past 15 months of war.

During a 20-minute question-and-answer session with news hounds aboard Air Force One, Trump described Gaza as a "demolition site" after the Israel-Hamas
Hamas

..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
war. He said he had spoken to Jordan’s King Abdullah II about the issue and expected to talk to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi on Sunday.

The White House readout on the call with the Jordanian monarch was light on details, saying the pair "discussed the importance of regional peace, security, and stability."

Trump filled in some of the details on Air Force One, saying he had told Abdullah, "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."

When asked if this was a temporary or long-term suggestion, Trump said: "Could be either."

"You’re talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing. You know, over the centuries it’s had many, many conflicts, that site. And I don’t know, something has to happen," Trump said.

In October, during his presidential campaign, the former real estate developer said that war-torn Gaza could be "better than Monaco" if it were "rebuilt the right way."

"It’s literally a demolition site right now. Almost everything is demolished and people are dying there," Trump said in his Saturday comments. "So I’d rather get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing at a different location where they can maybe live in peace for a change."

Palestinians, Jordan, Egypt reject Trump’s idea to send Gazans out of Strip

[IsraelTimes] Jordan’s FM also rejects suggestion, after US president says he discussed it with King Abdullah; Hamas politburo vows Palestinians will ‘foil such projects’ as they have in past

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Islamists make gains in Jordan vote overshadowed by Gaza war

2024-09-12

[The Times of Israel] Jordan's Islamist opposition made significant gains in parliamentary elections, boosted by anger over Israel's war in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
, initial official results showed on Wednesday.

The Islamist Action Front also benefited from a new electoral law that encourages a bigger role for political parties in the 138-seat parliament, though tribal and pro-government factions will continue to dominate the assembly.

The Front, the political arm of the Moslem Brüderbund, won up to a fifth of the seats under the revamped electoral law, which for the first time allocated 41 seats for parties, according to preliminary figures seen by Rooters and confirmed by independent and official sources.

''The Jordanian people have given us their trust by voting for us. This new phase will increase the burden of responsibility for the party towards the nation and our citizens,'' Wael al Saqqa, head of the party, told Rooters.

Tuesday's vote represents a modest step in a democratization process launched by King Abdullah II as he seeks to insulate Jordan from the conflicts at its borders, and respond to demands for robust political reforms.

Update from the Times of Israel at 9:00 a.m. ET:

Jordan’s leading Islamist opposition party has won 31 out of 138 seats in the kingdom’s parliament, tripling its representation in legislative elections dominated by frustration over Israel’s war against the Hamas terror group in Gaza.

The Islamic Action Front (IAF), a political offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan, came ahead of other parties and factions in the legislature after Tuesday’s vote, but was far from clinching a majority, according to official election results released on Wednesday.

The result is a historic win for the Islamists and their largest representation since the Muslim Brotherhood in 1989 gained 22 out of the 80 seats that existed then.

The IAF had 10 seats in the previous parliament elected in 2020 and 16 seats in the 2016 legislature.

The Islamists had sought to capitalize on growing anger over the ongoing war in Gaza among Jordanians, half of whom are of Palestinian origin.

Wael al Saqqa vowed that Jordanians would give Palestinians “financial and other assistance, and be their lungs in the path of liberation and achieving their right to a free state.”

The Muslim Brotherhood has been allowed to operate in Jordan since 1946. But it fell under suspicion after the Arab Spring, which saw Islamists pitted against established powers in many Arab countries.

“The elections reflect the desire for change and those who voted were not necessarily all Islamists but wanting change and had become fed up with the old ways,” Murad Adailah, the head of the Muslim Brotherhood, said.

The Islamists, the only effective grassroots opposition, praised the authorities for not meddling in polls. Adailah told Reuters their win was a “popular referendum” that backs their platform of support for the Palestinian terror group Hamas, their ideological allies, and their demand to scrap the country’s peace treaty with Israel.

The other seats in parliament went to representatives of major Jordanian tribes, leftist parties, pro-government factions, centrists, former lawmakers, and retired military officers.

Twenty-seven women won seats in the legislature, following 2022 reforms that allocated more seats for them and reduced the minimum age for candidates. That reform also expanded the number of seats from 130 to 138 and sought to strengthen the role of political parties in the legislature.

Under Jordan’s constitution, most powers still rest with the king who appoints governments and can dissolve parliament. The assembly can force a cabinet to resign by a vote of no confidence.

The monarch hopes nascent political parties under the new law will help pave the way for governments that emerge from parliamentary majorities.

The voting system still favors sparsely populated tribal and provincial regions over the densely populated cities mostly inhabited by Jordanians of Palestinian descent, which are Islamist strongholds and highly politicized.

Turnout registered 32 percent in the polls that were largely overshadowed by the Gaza war and Jordan’s economic troubles.

The war in Gaza has affected tourism to Jordan, which relies on the sector for about 14% of its gross domestic product.

Compounding the country’s economic woes, public debt has neared $50 billion and unemployment hit 21% in the first quarter of this year.

Jordan in 1994 signed a peace treaty with Israel, becoming only the second Arab state to do so after Egypt, but regular protests have called for the treaty’s dissolution since the war erupted on October 7 when Palestinian terror group Hamas led a devastating attack on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians.

Israel responded with a military offensive to destroy Hamas in Gaza and free 251 hostages who were abducted by terrorists in the Hamas attack.

Oraib Rantawi, head of the Amman-based Al Quds Center for Political Studies, described the Islamists’ gains in the election as “astonishing in their magnitude.”

The Islamists won “nearly half a million votes,” a figure he said was unprecedented in their history in Jordan.

“Gaza played a major role in this,” he added, as well as a feeling among voters that other competing parties “were created in haste… to reduce the chances of success of the Islamic Action Front.”

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