Istanbul, 10 February 2025 (dpa/MIA) - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan firmly rejects US plans to relocate Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and instead calls on Israel to rebuild the extensively destroyed coastal area.

At a conference in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, Erdoğan stated, "From our perspective, the proposals aiming to displace the Palestinians from the land they have lived on for thousands of years are not to be taken seriously."

He added, "No one has the power to inflict a second Nakba on the Palestinian people, nor will they ever have." The term Nakba, from the Arabic for catastrophe, refers to the flight and displacement of more than 700,000 Palestinians in the first Middle East war in 1948 following the establishment of the Israeli state.

Erdoğan further asserted that instead of seeking a new place for the people of Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should be held accountable for the damage inflicted during the military operation against the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in Gaza.

US President Donald Trump reiterated his much-criticized plans on Sunday to displace the Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. Trump intends to relocate the Palestinians and is "committed to buying and owning" the Gaza Strip.

The expulsion of more than 2 million people would contravene international law, with the United Nations warning of "ethnic cleansing."

MIA file photo