13 February, 2025

US’s Bernie Sanders lone senator to oppose Trump’s call to ‘clean out’ Gaza

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US’s Bernie Sanders lone senator to oppose Trump’s call to ‘clean out’ Gaza

Trump’s comments received little outrage from leading progressives and puzzled some of his Republican allies

MEE staff


US Senator Bernie Sanders speaks at a news conference on restricting arms sales to Israel at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on 19 November 2024 (Kevin Dietsch/AFP)

US Senator Bernie Sanders has condemned President Donald Trump’s comments that millions of Palestinians from Gaza be removed from the enclave, calling it “ethnic cleansing” and a “war crime”.

Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont and a leading progressive voice in American politics, was the lone senator to condemn the remarks and called on others to censure Trump for making the suggestion.

“Trump said he wants to ‘clean out’ Gaza and push the millions of Palestinians living there into neighboring countries,” Sanders said in a statement on X.

“There is a name for this – ethnic cleansing – and it’s a war crime,” he added.

Trump on Sunday said he wants Egypt and Jordan to take in hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from the territory, calling Gaza a “demolition site”.




“I’d like Egypt to take people. And I’d like Jordan to take people,” Trump told reporters.

“You’re talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing,” Trump said of Gaza, which has a population of about 2.3 million, adding that “something has to happen”.

Early in Israel’s war on Gaza, Sanders was criticised by progressive activists for refusing to endorse a call for a ceasefire in Gaza. Three hundred of his former staffers demanded a ceasefire in the conflict in October 2023, but at that point, Sanders had only called for a “humanitarian pause” without mentioning a ceasefire.

At the same time, the lawmaker has been a leading voice in the Senate, calling on the US to restrict weapons shipments to Israel over human rights violations in the Palestinian enclave.

Trump’s plan not ‘overly practical’

Rights experts quickly and widely condemned Trump’s comments as advocating for “ethnic cleansing”. Inside Washington, there has been little outrage from progressive lawmakers aside from Sanders.

Many far-right political figures have called for both the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank to be ethnically cleansed of their Palestinian population.

But Trump’s comments on Gaza have even troubled some of his Republican allies.




Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican lawmaker who has often come to Trump’s defence, told CNN that he doesn’t “know what he’s talking about”, in reference to Trump’s call for millions of Palestinians to be removed from Gaza.

Trump’s Gaza ‘clean out’ is blatant violation of international law, say experts

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“The idea that all the Palestinians are going to leave and go somewhere else, I don’t see that to be overly practical,” said Graham, who in October 2023 called on Israel to “level the place” when referring to Gaza.

Despite calls by Trump to “clean out” Gaza, this week hundreds of thousands of Palestinians returned to northern Gaza after being displaced by Israel’s military during Israel’s war on the enclave.

Around 80 percent of Gaza’s population are refugees or descendants of refugees displaced in 1948 when Israel captured 78 percent of historic Palestine, in an event known to Palestinians as the Nakba, or the catastrophe.

Sami Saleh, a Palestinian who was displaced several times throughout Israel’s war on Gaza, previously told MEE he was excited to be back home in the north.

“I won’t hide these feelings, and I am not exaggerating when I say this: I wanted to fly to the north… these feelings have been there from the start. Despite all the pain and hardship, I had to make my way back to the north no matter what, even if I had to walk there barefoot,” he said.

Israel and Hamas agreed to a multi-stage ceasefire deal earlier this month. The fragile agreement has been in place since 19 January, and aid has slowly begun trickling into Gaza.

However, Trump has already cast doubt on whether the ceasefire will make it to the second phase, which will begin in March.

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