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US President Donald Trump floated a plan Saturday to “just clean out” Gaza, and said he wants Egypt and Jordan to take Palestinians from the territory in a bid to create Middle East peace.Describing Gaza as a “demolition site” after the Israel-Hamas war, Trump said he had spoken to Jordan’s King Abdullah II about the issue and expected to talk to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Sunday.”I’d like Egypt to take people. And I’d like Jordan to take people,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One.”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.”The vast majority of Gaza’s 2.4 million people have been displaced, often multiple times, by the war that began with Hamas’s attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.Trump said moving Gaza’s inhabitants could be “temporarily or could be long term.””It’s literally a demolition site right now, almost everything is demolished and people are dying there,” added Trump. “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.”A fragile truce and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas — which was signed on the last day of former US president Joe Biden’s administration but which Trump has claimed credit for — has entered its second week.- Bomb shipment released -Trump’s new administration has promised “unwavering support” for Israel, without yet laying out details of its Middle East policy.Trump confirmed on Saturday that he had ordered the Pentagon to release a shipment of 2,000-lb bombs for Israel which was blocked by his predecessor Biden.”We released them. We released them today,” Trump said. “They paid for them and they’ve been waiting for them for a long time.”Israel’s retaliatory offensive has left much of the Palestinian territory in ruins, with infrastructure destroyed, and the United Nations estimates reconstruction will take many years.In October during his presidential campaign, former real estate developer Trump said that war-torn Gaza could be “better than Monaco” if it was “rebuilt the right way.”Trump’s son-in-law and former White House employee Jared Kushner suggested in February that Israel empty Gaza of civilians to unlock the potential of its “waterfront property.”For Palestinians, any attempt to move them from Gaza would evoke dark historical memories of what the Arab world calls the “Nakba” or catastrophe — the mass displacement of Palestinians during Israel’s creation 75 years ago.Israel has denied having any plans to force Gazans to move.But some extreme-right members of the Israeli government have publicly supported the idea of Gazans leaving the Palestinian territory en masse.

The Israeli military is all but certain to miss a Sunday deadline to withdraw from southern Lebanon under a ceasefire deal that ended its war with Hezbollah two months ago.Under the terms of the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire that took effect on November 27, the Lebanese army is to deploy alongside United Nations peacekeepers in the south as the Israeli army withdraws over a 60-day period that ends on Sunday.On Saturday, the Lebanese army said a delay in implementing the agreement was the “result of the procrastination in the withdrawal from the Israeli enemy’s side”.Israeli forces have left coastal areas of southern Lebanon, but are still present in areas further east.The deal stipulates that Hezbollah pull back its forces north of the Litani River — about 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the border — and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure in the south.But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Friday that “the ceasefire agreement has not yet been fully enforced by the Lebanese state” and so the military’s withdrawal would continue beyond the Sunday deadline.”The withdrawal process is conditional upon the Lebanese army deploying in southern Lebanon and fully and effectively enforcing the agreement, with Hezbollah withdrawing beyond the Litani River,” a statement from Netanyahu’s office said.It added that “the gradual withdrawal process will continue in full coordination with the United States”, a key ally and one of the monitors of the ceasefire.The Lebanese army said it was “ready to continue its deployment as soon as the Israeli enemy withdraws”.- ‘Scorched earth’ -Hezbollah lawmaker Ali Fayad said on Saturday that Israel’s “excuses” were a pretext to “pursue a scorched earth policy” in border areas that would make the return of displaced residents “impossible”.Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, who took office earlier this month, spoke on Saturday with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, whose government is also involved in overseeing the truce.According to a statement from his office, Aoun spoke of the “need to oblige Israel to respect the terms of the deal in order to maintain stability in the south”.Aoun also said Israel must “end its successive violations, including the destruction of border villages… which would prevent the return of residents”.Macron’s office, in its summary of the conversation, said the French president had called on all parties to the Lebanon ceasefire to honour their commitments as soon as possible.The fragile ceasefire has generally held, even as the warring sides have repeatedly traded accusations of violating it.The Israeli military has continued to carry out frequent strikes which it says targeted Hezbollah fighters, and Lebanese state media has reported that Israeli forces were carrying out demolitions in villages they control.The November 27 deal ended two months of full-scale war which had followed months of low-intensity exchanges.Hezbollah began trading cross-border fire with the Israeli army the day after the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by its Palestinian ally Hamas which triggered the war in Gaza.Israel intensified its campaign against Hezbollah in September, launching a series of devastating blows against the group’s leadership and killing its longtime chief Hassan Nasrallah.Hezbollah warned on Thursday that “any violation of the 60-day deadline will be considered a flagrant violation” of the ceasefire agreement and “an infringement on Lebanese sovereignty”.The group refrained from any threat to resume attacks on Israel but said the Lebanese state should use “all means necessary… to restore the land and wrest it from the clutches of the occupation”.

A fragile truce aimed at ending the war in Gaza entered its second week on Sunday, after four Israeli hostages and around 200 Palestinian prisoners were released to joyful scenes.While Israel and militant group Hamas completed on Saturday their second hostage-prisoner swap under the ceasefire deal, a last-minute dispute blocked the expected return of hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians to the Gaza Strip’s devastated north.Israel announced that it would block Palestinians’ passage to the north until a civilian woman hostage who the prime minister’s office said “was supposed to be released” on Saturday walks free.A Hamas source told AFP that the woman, Arbel Yehud, will be “released as part of the third swap set for next Saturday”.The dispute highlighted concerns over the next phases of the three-stage truce deal, which took effect on January 19.The deal’s second phase is to see negotiations for a permanent end to the war, but analysts have warned it risks collapsing because of the deal’s multi-phase nature and deep distrust between Israel and Hamas.During the first six-week phase, 33 hostages should be freed in staggered releases in exchange for around 1,900 Palestinians held in Israeli jails.A total of seven hostages and 289 Palestinians have so far been released under the deal, as well as one Jordanian prisoner freed by Israel.- Waiting to return home – In Gaza, Palestinian police prevented hundreds of displaced people from reaching the Israeli-controlled passage to the north, where Israeli tanks and armoured vehicles were blocking the road.Rafiqa Subh, waiting to return to Beit Lahia, said: “We want to go back, even though our houses are destroyed. We miss our homes so much.”Subh said she would wait to be allowed back into the north “even if we have to sleep by the checkpoint”.The Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee said Gazans were not allowed to approach the Netzarim Corridor, through which they have to pass to reach their homes in the north, “until it is announced open”.”These instructions will remain in effect” until further notice and until “Hamas fulfils its commitments”, Adraee said, echoing Israeli claims that Hamas was in breach of the agreement by not handing over Yehud.Among those trying to return Saturday was Samia Helles, a 26-year-old from Gaza City.”So far, I don’t know whether my house is still standing or destroyed. I don’t know if my mother is alive or dead. I haven’t been able to contact her for a month,” she said.The truce has brought a surge of food, fuel, medicines and other aid into rubble-strewn Gaza, but the UN says “the humanitarian situation remains dire”.- ‘Until the last hostage’ – The four hostages released on Saturday, all women soldiers, were reunited with their families and taken to hospital, where a doctor said they were in a stable condition.Of the 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack which triggered the war, 87 remain in Gaza including 34 the military says are dead.Some Israelis fear for the fate of the remaining hostages as far-right members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition oppose the ceasefire.Hours after Saturday’s hostage release was completed, thousands of protesters gathered in Tel Aviv, as they have done weekly throughout the war, to pressure the authorities to secure the release of hostages.An AFP correspondent said the demonstrators chanted in support of the return of all remaining hostages, including those not slated for release during the first phase of the truce.”The families cannot breathe. We are under immense stress… We will do everything, we will fight until the end, until the last hostage” returns, said Ifat Kalderon, whose cousin Ofer Kalderon is still held in Gaza.Efrat Machikava, niece of hostage Gadi Mozes, said that “our hearts are filled with joy for the four hostages who returned to us today, but we are extremely concerned for our loved ones still held in terrorist captivity.”The October 7, 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 47,283 people in Gaza, the majority civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry which the United Nations considers reliable.burs-ami/dhc