Jordanian King Rebuffs Trump Proposal to Displace Palestinians in Gaza

King Abdullah II of Jordan on Tuesday rebuffed President Trump’s proposal for his country to absorb Palestinians living in Gaza, saying that he remained opposed to a plan Mr. Trump has laid out to clear the territory so the United States can seize control of it.

During a “constructive” meeting with the U.S. president at the White House, King Abdullah said, he “reiterated Jordan’s steadfast position against the displacement of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.”

“This is the unified Arab position,” he stated in a post on social media after the meeting. “Rebuilding Gaza without displacing the Palestinians and addressing the dire humanitarian situation should be the priority for all.”

His statement came hours after Mr. Trump insisted the United States had the authority to “take” Gaza, part of an effort to pressure the leader of Jordan and other Arab nations to embrace a forced removal, which has drawn widespread condemnation.

“We will have Gaza,” said Mr. Trump, as he sat next to Mr. Abdullah and the Crown Prince Hussein of Jordan. “It’s a war-torn area. We’re going to take it. We’re going to hold it. We’re going to cherish it.”

Mr. Abdullah largely demurred when asked by reporters about Mr. Trump’s proposal, describing the president as a force for peace in the region and saying Jordan was prepared to assist sick Palestinian children.

But according to his statement, Mr. Abdullah was more direct with Mr. Trump in private.

“Achieving just peace on the basis of the two-state solution is the way to ensure regional stability,” King Abdullah said in the post. “This requires US leadership.”

The meeting came a week after Mr. Trump declared that he wanted the United States to seize control of Gaza and wanted Jordan and Egypt to resettle the roughly two million Palestinians who call it home. Both Jordan and Egypt rejected the idea when Mr. Trump raised it last week at a news conference with Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

In a statement on social media on Tuesday, a spokesperson for Egypt’s foreign ministry said that the country would work with the United States on a “just settlement of the Palestinian cause,” but reiterated that Palestinians must be allowed to remain in their homeland.

The meeting with King Abdullah amounted to not only a pivotal moment for a key ally in the Middle East but more broadly for the future of Gaza.

The talks came as the cease-fire agreement in the war in the Gaza Strip appeared to be at risk of breaking. Mr. Netanyahu warned Hamas on Tuesday that if hostages were not released by noon on Saturday, then Israeli troops would resume “intense fighting.” His statement echoed an ultimatum Mr. Trump issued on Monday evening and again on Tuesday, that Hamas would need to release all remaining hostages by Saturday at midday.

“They either have them out by Saturday at 12 o’clock or all bets are off,” Mr. Trump said.

Hamas has accused Israel of breaking a promise to send hundreds of thousands of tents into Gaza, a claim that three Israeli officials and two mediators said was accurate. The Israeli military unit that oversees aid deliveries, however, has said that Hamas’s claims are “completely false accusations.”

The fragility of the cease-fire, as well as Mr. Trump’s proposal for the forced displacement of Palestinians, have put Arab leaders in “reaction mode,” according to Jonathan Panikoff, the director of the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council.

“All of the region’s leaders are trying to balance what they view as an increasingly unstable situation,” Mr. Panikoff said. “There’s always been conflict now for almost a year and a half and it has not ever fully subsided. But now you have a U.S. president who has threatened actions that would add kerosene to an already burning fire.”

Mr. Trump in recent days has dug in on his improbable proposal to permanently resettle most Palestinians while the United States would be handed control of the territory by Israel and then redevelop it into a hub for jobs and tourism. Mr. Trump has privately been talking about the notion of the United States taking control of Gaza for several weeks, according to multiple people who have spoken with him.

Mr. Trump ramped up pressure on Egypt and Jordan on the eve of King Abdullah’s visit when he said he could cut aid to Jordan unless it took in Palestinians. Once resettled, Mr. Trump has said, those Palestinians would not have the right to return to Gaza. Asked how he would force Palestinians to leave Gaza, Mr. Trump shrugged off the question. “They’re going to be great,” he said. “They’re going to be very happy.”

American aid to Jordan, including military aid, is currently frozen as part of Mr. Trump’s halt to foreign assistance across the globe. Still, King Abdullah faced the difficult task of trying to protect the more than $1.5 billion in foreign aid Jordan receives from the United States while also trying to get Mr. Trump to back off his demands for the mass removal of Palestinians.

Mr. Trump appeared to walk back his suggestion that he would cut aid to Jordan on Tuesday, saying, “We’re above that.”

The monarchy is concerned that accepting an influx of roughly two million refugees could inflame tensions between citizens of Palestinian descent and those who are not, analysts say. More than half of King Abdullah’s 12 million subjects are of Palestinian descent. Jordan is already home to approximately 700,000 refugees, most of them Syrians who fled from that country’s civil war.

Jordan’s parliament just last week introduced a bill that would ban the resettlement of Palestinians in the country. King Abdullah could try to convince Mr. Trump that his hope to move Palestinians out of Gaza would complicate his administration’s broader efforts to get Saudi Arabia to join Mr. Trump’s 2020 Abraham Accords, which established formal ties between Israel and four Arab countries.

Rather than initially push back publicly on Mr. Trump, King Abdullah appeared to try and placate the president by saying Jordan would take in 2,000 Palestinian children suffering cancer and other illnesses. Mr. Trump responded gleefully to the statement, calling it a “beautiful gesture,” even though foreign policy analysts said Jordan had previously signaled it would take in sick children from Gaza.

Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, said that King Abdullah’s offer drew from a well-established “playbook” used by Arab leaders when they deal with Mr. Trump.

Arab leaders, he said, “know how to placate Trump — and then work with the serious people on his team who have the job of making sense of his nonsense.”

Michael Crowley contributed reporting.