INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Saudi Arabia affirmed its categorical rejection of remarks by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about displacing Palestinians from
their land, the foreign ministry said in a statement on Sunday.Israeli officials have suggested the establishment of a Palestinian state on
Netanyahu appeared to be joking on Thursday when he responded to an interviewer on pro-Netanyahu Channel 14 who mistakenly said &Saudi
state& instead of &Palestinian state&, before correcting himself, Reuters reported.While the Saudi statement mentioned Netanyahu&s name, it
did not directly refer to the comments about establishing a Palestinian state in Saudi territory.Egypt and Jordan also condemned the Israeli
suggestions, with Cairo deeming the idea as a &direct infringement of Saudi sovereignty&.The kingdom said it valued &brotherly& states&
rejection of Netanyahu&s remarks.&This occupying extremist mindset does not comprehend what the Palestinian territory means for the
brotherly people of Palestine and its conscientious, historical and legal association with that land,& it said.Discussions of the fate of
Palestinians in Gaza has been upended by Tuesday&s shock proposal from President Donald Trump that the U.S
would &take over the Gaza Strip& from Israel and create a &Riviera of the Middle East& after resettling Palestinians elsewhere.Arab states
have roundly condemned Trump&s comments, which came during a fragile ceasefire in the Gaza war that Israel has been waging against the
militant group Hamas, which controls the narrow strip.Trump has said Saudi Arabia was not demanding a Palestinian state as a condition for
normalising ties with Israel
But Riyadh rebuffed his statements, saying it would not establish ties with Israel without the creation of a Palestinian state.Gaza
authorities say the war has killed more than 47,000 of the nearly 2 million Palestinians who live there
Israel launched its offensive after Hamas-led gunmen killed some 1,200 people and seized more than 250 as hostages in an October 7, 2023,
attack, according to Israeli tallies.The post Saudi Arabia rejects Israel PM Netanyahu&s remarks on displacing Palestinians first appeared
