CAIRO: A senior Hamas official on Monday called on supporters worldwide to pick up weapons and fight US President Donald Trump’s plan to relocate more than two million Gazans to neighboring countries such as Egypt and Jordan.
“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.
“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 militant group disarm in the final stages of the war in Gaza.
Hamas has expressed a willingness to relinquish Gaza’s administration, but has warned its weapons are a “red line.”
Netanyahu said Israel was working toward a plan proposed by Trump to displace Gazans to other countries.
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.”
Days after taking office in January, Trump floated a proposal to move Gaza’s population out of the war-battered territory, suggesting that Egypt or Jordan could take them in.
Both countries, along with other Arab allies, governments around the world and the Palestinians themselves, have flatly rejected the notion.
Trump later appeared to backtrack on the proposal, saying he was “not forcing” his widely condemned plan.
“Nobody’s expelling any Palestinians,” Trump said at the White House in mid-March, remarks welcomed by Egypt, Jordan and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).


Arab nations have since come up with an alternative plan for rebuilding the Gaza Strip without relocating its people, which would take place under the future administration of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority.
For Palestinians, any attempts to force them out of Gaza would evoke dark memories of what the Arab world calls the “Nakba,” or catastrophe — the mass displacement of Palestinians during Israel’s creation in 1948.
Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz in February said that a special agency would be established for the “voluntary departure” of Gazans.
A defense ministry statement said an initial plan included “extensive assistance that will allow any Gaza resident who wishes to emigrate voluntarily to a third country to receive a comprehensive package, which includes, among other things, special departure arrangements via sea, air, and land.”
Israel resumed intense bombing of Gaza on March 18 and then launched a new ground offensive, ending a nearly two-month ceasefire in the war with Hamas.
Since the fighting restarted, the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says that at least 1,001 people have been killed.
The war was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 50,357 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to the territory’s health ministry.

DAMASCUS: Syria’s interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa said Monday a new transitional government would aim for consensus in rebuilding the war-torn country but acknowledged it would be unable to satisfy everyone.
The transitional 23-member cabinet — without a prime minister — was announced Saturday, more than three months after Sharaa’s Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) led an offensive that toppled longtime president Bashar Assad.
The autonomous Kurdish-led administration in northeast Syria has rejected the government’s legitimacy, saying it “does not reflect the country’s diversity.”
Sharaa said the new government’s goal was rebuilding the country but warned that “will not be able to satisfy everyone.”
“Any steps we take will not reach consensus — this is normal — but we must reach a consensus” as much as possible, he told a gathering at the presidential palace broadcast on Syrian television after prayers for the Eid Al-Fitr Muslim holiday.
Authorities are seeking to reunite and rebuild the country and its institutions after nearly 14 years of civil war.
Some of Sharaa’s closest supporters and other figures aligned with him make up the majority of the new cabinet.
Sharaa said the ministers were chosen for their competence and expertise, “without particular ideological or political orientations.”
Most members are Sunni Muslim, reflecting the demographic make-up of Syria, ruled for decades by the Assad clan which belongs to the Alawite minority.
Amid international calls for an inclusive transition, the new government has four ministers from minority groups in Syria — a Christian, a Druze, a Kurd and an Alawite, none of whom were handed key portfolios.
Sharaa said the new government’s make-up took into consideration “the diversity of Syrian society” while rejecting a quota system for religious or ethnic minorities, instead opting for “participation.”
“A new history is being written for Syria... we are all writing it,” he told the gathering.
This month, Sharaa signed into force a constitutional declaration regulating the country’s transitional period, set for five years.
Some experts and rights groups have warned that it concentrates power in Sharaa’s hands and fails to include enough protections for minorities.
This month also saw the worst sectarian bloodshed since Assad’s overthrow, with civilian massacres in Alawite-majority areas.
Sharaa has previously vowed to prosecute those behind the “bloodshed of civilians” and set up a fact-finding committee.