RIYADH: Arab leaders will gather in Saudi Arabia today (Friday) to counter President Donald Trump's plan for US control of Gaza and the expulsion of its inhabitants, diplomatic and government sources said.

The plan stirred rare unity among Arab states which roundly rejected the idea, but they could still disagree over who will govern the Palestinian territory and who will pay for reconstruction.

Umer Karim, an expert on Saudi foreign policy, told AFP the summit would be the "most consequential" in decades in relation to the wider Arab world and the Palestinian issue.

Trump provoked international outrage when he announced that the United States would "take over the Gaza Strip", moving 2.4 million Gazans living there to neighbouring Egypt and Jordan.

A source close to the Saudi government told AFP Arab leaders would discuss "a reconstruction plan counter to Trump's plan for Gaza". Friday's summit was originally planned for Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Jordan.

However, it has been expanded to include the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and the Palestinian Authority.

For Palestinians, any attempt to force them from Gaza would have echoes of what the Arab world calls the "Nakba" or catastrophe, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians expelled during Israel's creation in 1948. Reconstruction will be a critical issue at the summit after Trump highlighted this as the key reason for moving its inhabitants out while Gaza's infrastructure is rebuilt.

One Arab diplomat familiar with the Gulf told AFP: "In the end, the biggest challenge facing the Egyptian plan is how to finance it.

"Some countries like Kuwait will inject funds, perhaps for humanitarian reasons, but other Gulf States will set specific conditions before any financial transfer."

Published in The Daily National Courier, February, 21 2025

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