Aysar Alais and Ikram Kouachi
15 February 2025•Update: 16 February 2025
ISTANBUL
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday firmly rejected any attempts to displace the Palestinian people from their homeland.
"Anyone who thinks they can impose a new 'Deal of the Century' or displace the Palestinian people from their homeland is deluded,” Abbas said at the 38th African Union Summit in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.
Abbas stressed that “calls to remove the Palestinian people from their land and forcefully displace them were merely a diversion from the war crimes, genocide, and destruction in Gaza, as well as the crimes of settlement expansion and attempts to annex the West Bank.”
"The only place where the 1.5 million refugees living in Gaza should return to is their cities and villages from which they were displaced in 1948, in accordance with United Nations Resolution 194," he added.
Abbas also emphasized that “Israeli colonial practices require urgent action from the international community and the UN Security Council to prevent the rise of extremist forces that seek to bury the two-state solution.”
He also called for “support for the international peace conference scheduled to take place at the UN in mid-June.”
The summit aims to mobilize international efforts to gain global recognition for the state of Palestine, secure full UN membership, and implement the two-state solution based on international law, according to Abbas.
US President Donald Trump has recently suggested "taking over" Gaza and resettling Palestinians to neighboring countries while turning the enclave into “the Riviera of the Middle East.”
Trump’s "deal of the century," unveiled in 2020 as a proposal for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, was met widespread condemnation from the Arab world and beyond.
A ceasefire agreement took effect in Gaza on Jan. 19, halting Israel’s genocidal war, which has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, and left the enclave in ruins.
