HAMILTON, Canada

Palestine's permanent representative to the UN highlighted the importance of the Gaza Strip for Palestinians on Wednesday, stressing that it is "part of the state of Palestine" after US President Donald Trump announced plans to "take over" the enclave.

"The Gaza Strip is a very precious component of the land of the State of Palestine. It is part of our homeland, and we don't have a homeland other than the state of Palestine," Riyad Mansour said at a meeting organized by a UN committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.

Saying that Palestinians are not in search of other "homelands," Mansour said: "For those who want us to have a happy place and safe place, we will be delighted to return to our homes inside the state of Israel.”

"Gaza is part of the state of Palestine. The West Bank is part of the state of Palestine. So is Jerusalem," he noted.

Calling on all countries to help the state of Palestine shoulder the responsibility of rebuilding the Gaza Strip, he strongly rejected "any idea of ethnic cleansing or kicking our people from the Gaza Strip under any reason or conditions."

He also welcomed the Gaza ceasefire deal but stressed that "we want this agreement on a ceasefire to become a permanent ceasefire and to cover all parts of the occupied Palestinian territory."

Mansour said that a ceasefire in Gaza should not "open hell on us and the West Bank, particularly the northern part of the West Bank."

"We want the ceasefire to become a permanent ceasefire in all of Gaza and in all of the occupied Palestinian territory," he said.

Saying that Palestinians want to rebuild Gaza and "to put it back together," Mansour asked all countries "to help us in this endeavor."

"There is no power on earth that can remove the Palestinian people from our ancestral land," he said.

Trump’s proposal to relocate Palestinians in Gaza first came after a ceasefire agreement took effect in the enclave on Jan. 19, suspending Israel’s genocidal war, which has killed more than 47,000 Palestinians and left the enclave in ruins.

The “US will take over the Gaza Strip,” he told a news conference Tuesday evening alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

He repeated that the Gazan population should be moved to countries like Jordan and Egypt, with the US turning the land into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”