The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation endorsed the Arab League’s counter-proposal to US President Donald Trump‘s plan to seize Gaza and displace its residents, on Friday, according to two ministers who spoke to news agency AFP.
“The emergency ministerial meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation adopted the Egyptian plan, which has now become an Arab-Islamic plan,” Egyptian Foreign minister Badr Abdelatty said.
“The next step is for the plan to become an international plan through adoption by the European Union and international parties such as Japan, Russia, China and others. This is what we will seek and we have contact with all parties, including the American party.” Abdelatty added.
According to the Middle East Monitor, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) had convened an emergency meeting at its Jeddah headquarters to address the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the calls for displacement, and the urgent need for Gaza’s reconstruction.
The Arab-backed proposal, led by Egypt, calls for Hamas to relinquish control to an interim administration until a reformed Palestinian Authority (PA) assumes governance. Unlike Trump’s plan, the Egyptian framework would allow nearly 2 million Palestinians to remain in Gaza.
Meanwhile, the Donald Trump-led administration has rejected a long-anticipated Gaza reconstruction plan proposed by Arab leaders, reiterating its own vision for the region.
According to CNN, the White House maintains that US President Donald Trump supports a plan that involves expelling Palestinian residents and transforming Gaza into a “riviera” under US ownership. In a statement on Tuesday night, White House National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes said, “The current proposal does not address the reality that Gaza is currently uninhabitable and residents cannot humanely live in a territory covered in debris and unexploded ordnance.”
“I think that it’s a big mistake to allow people, the Palestinians, or the people living in Gaza, to go back yet another time, and we don’t want Hamas going back. And think of it as a big real estate site and the United States is going to own it and we’ll slowly, very slowly, we’re in no rush, develop it. We’re going to bring stability to the Middle East soon,” Trump had told reporters in the first week of February.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after meeting with Trump last month, had praised the proposal as a “revolutionary, creative vision,” claiming it had the potential to reshape the region’s future. “For an entire year, we’ve been told that in the ‘day after,’ the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) and the Palestinian Authority must be in Gaza,” Netanyahu told his cabinet.