US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken categorically rejects the “idea” of the Palestinians being expelled from the Gaza Strip, which is “doomed to failure”, he said yesterday Sunday, estimating that its residents should be able to remain there during the Israeli military operation against Hamas.

Mr Blinken continues his emergency crisis management tour of the Middle East following the deadly October 7 attack on Israel that killed more than 1,400 people, most of them civilians, which prompted Israeli retaliation that killed more than 2,670.

As Israel’s military has ordered more than a million residents to evacuate the enclave’s north, ahead of a full-scale ground operation, Israeli politicians are openly suggesting that the Palestinians be expelled, driven to neighboring Egypt.

“I heard directly from the president of the Palestinian Authority (Mahmoud) Abbas and practically every other leader I spoke to in the region that this idea is doomed to fail and we do not support it,” Mr. Blinken said during an interview with Saudi Al Arabiya television network that aired yesterday.

“We believe that people should remain in Gaza, their home. But we also want guarantees that he will not be in danger and that he will receive the help he needs”, he added.

Israel’s former deputy foreign minister Daniel Ayalon called on Egypt to cooperate and set up tent camps for Palestinians, as there is “almost unlimited space” in the Sinai, a vast desert-covered area once under Israeli occupation.

Cairo rejected the proposal and the US secretary of state during his visit focused on means and ways to distribute humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, home to 2.3 million people and ruled by Hamas.

Mahmoud Abbas told Mr Blinken on Friday that the expulsion of the population from the Gaza Strip would constitute a “second Nakba” (“catastrophe” in Arabic), a term that refers to the violent displacement and expulsion of more than 760,000 Palestinians when it was established the state of Israel, in 1948.