Britain, France, Germany and Italy on Saturday, March 8, backed a proposal by Arab nations to rebuild Gaza. The counter-proposal to US President Donald Trump's plan to take over Gaza and displace its residents "shows a realistic path to the reconstruction of Gaza and promises – if implemented – swift and sustainable improvement of the catastrophic living conditions for the Palestinians living in Gaza," the foreign ministers of the four countries said in a joint statement.
Meanwhile, foreign ministers from Muslim nations on Saturday backed the plan and rejected Trump's calls to empty the Gaza Strip of its Palestinian population. The foreign ministers gathered in the Saudi city of Jeddah for a special session of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to address the situation in Gaza, at a time when the 7-week-old ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has been thrown into doubt.
In a statement put out Saturday, the gathering threw its support behind the plan to rebuild Gaza put forward by Egypt and backed by Arab states, including Saudi Arabia and Jordan. The OIC groups 57 nations with largely Muslim populations.
Without specifically mentioning Trump, the ministers said they rejected "plans aimed at displacing the Palestinian people individually or collectively (…) as ethnic cleansing, a grave violation of international law and a crime against humanity." They also condemned "policies of starvation" that they said aim to push Palestinians to leave.