President Trump is facing accusations of supporting ethnic cleansing in Gaza after saying he wants to “clean out the whole thing.” Trump made the remark while speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Saturday.

President Donald Trump: “I’d like Egypt to take people, and I’d like Jordan to take people. I could — I mean, you’re talking about probably a million and a half people. And we just clean out that whole thing. It’s — you know, it’s — over the centuries, that’s — that’s many, many conflicts, that site. And I don’t know. It’s — something has to happen. But it’s literally a demolition site right now. Almost everything’s demolished.”

Egypt and Jordan have rejected Trump’s call. This is Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi.

Ayman Safadi: “Our stance that the two-state solution is the path to achieving peace is firm and unwavering. Our rejection of displacement is also firm and unwavering. This is not only the steadfast and unwavering position of the kingdom, but it is also a necessity for achieving the security, stability and peace that we all desire.”

Hassan Jabareen of the Palestinian human rights group Adalah likened Trump’s proposal to the “ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.” Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called Trump’s proposal to clear Gaza of Palestinians a great idea. Smotrich has backed building new illegal Israeli settlements in Gaza. We will have more on this story after headlines.

Tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians are returning to north Gaza today, many for the first time in over a year, as the Israel-Hamas ceasefire enters its second week. But most Palestinians will be returning to find their homes reduced to rubble. The U.N. estimates 92% of homes in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged during Israel’s 15-month bombardment. Hala Shallah is a 19-year-old Palestinian heading back to Gaza City.

Hala Shallah: “We experienced tremendous hardship from the moment we left Gaza City. We were displaced from Gaza City’s Shuja’iyya neighborhood. After leaving, we spent two nights — one night in al-Din, then we moved to Khan Younis and stayed at Al-Aqsa University. We’ve been displaced multiple times. When we heard the war had stopped and people could return to Gaza City, we desperately wanted to go back to Gaza City because we missed our home and everyone in Gaza City. Our house was destroyed, but we’re fine with living among the rubble.”

On Saturday, Hamas released four female Israeli soldiers who had been held hostage since October 7, 2023. Israel then released 200 imprisoned Palestinians, including 70 who are being forced into exile abroad. Hamas has also agreed to release three more Israeli hostages by Thursday, including a female civilian named Arbel Yehoud.

Meanwhile, Israel is being accused of preventing 11 doctors and nurses from the United States from leaving northern Gaza.

In the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces shot dead a 2-year-old Palestinian girl named Laila Muhammad Ayman al-Khatib on Saturday. The girl was eating dinner with her family in their living room when Israeli snipers fired four shots into their home near Jenin. One of the bullets hit Laila in the back of the head. Israeli forces have killed at least 16 people in or near Jenin over the past week.

In Lebanon, Israeli forces opened fire on people trying to return to their homes in the country’s south. Israeli forces killed at least 24 people and wounded more than 134 people. Israel had been scheduled to withdraw troops from southern Lebanon by Sunday, but the White House has announced a deal has been reached to delay the withdrawal until February 18.

In news from Washington, D.C., Secretary of State Marco Rubio has frozen almost all foreign aid coming from the State Department and USAID. But Rubio’s memo exempts military funding to two countries: Israel and Egypt. Rubio’s memo came as the Trump administration announced the U.S. would resume sending 2,000-pound bombs to Israel, lifting a hold put in place by the Biden administration.

The U.S. Senate has confirmed Pete Hegseth as defense secretary. Vice President JD Vance cast a rare tie-breaking vote to confirm Hegseth, a former Fox News host and combat veteran who faced accusations of rape, spousal abuse, excessive drinking on the job and financial mismanagement. Three Republican senators joined Democrats in opposing him: Mitch McConnell, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins. Ahead of the vote, Democratic Senator Tim Kaine said there were many more qualified people for the post.

Sen. Tim Kaine: “There are hundreds of them without the personal baggage of sexual assault claims that have been settled, of allegations of spousal abuse that have been testified to, of allegations of drunkenness on the job and fiscal mismanagement that are the subject of a very extensive report written by nonanonymous co-workers.”

We will look at Pete Hegseth’s embrace of extreme Christian nationalism later in the program.

The Senate has also confirmed South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem to head the Department of Homeland Security. The final vote was 59 to 34, with seven Democrats supporting her: John Fetterman, Maggie Hassan, Tim Kaine, Andy Kim, Gary Peters, Jeanne Shaheen and Elissa Slotkin.

On Friday night, President Trump fired over a dozen independent inspectors general across federal agencies. The move appears to violate a federal law that requires the president to give Congress 30 days’ notice before firing an inspector general confirmed by the Senate. A group of House Democrats wrote a letter to Trump demanding he reverse the purge, saying it is “antithetical to good government [and] undermines the proper stewardship of taxpayer dollars.”

The White House has announced the government of Colombia has agreed to begin accepting flights of deported immigrants after a dramatic standoff between the two countries. On Sunday, Colombian President Gustavo Petro turned back two U.S. military planes carrying deported people, saying immigrants should be treated with dignity. President Trump then imposed new tariffs and sanctions on Colombia. Petro responded with retaliatory tariffs on U.S. imports, but within hours the White House announced a deal had been reached.

The standoff with Colombia comes as the Trump administration announced nearly 1,000 people were arrested on Sunday as federal agencies carried out immigration raids in Chicago and other cities. In Chicago, agents with ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, were assisted by the FBI; the Drug Enforcement Administration; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and the U.S. Marshals Service. The Washington Post reports the Trump administration wants every ICE field office to make at least 75 immigration arrests per day as part of a new quota system.

Local communities are pushing back. On Friday, school officials in Chicago refused to allow agents into an elementary school. School officials at first thought the agents were from ICE, but they were actually from the U.S. Secret Service.

The Justice Department has announced it will limit enforcement of a 1994 law known as the FACE Act that protects abortion clinics and people seeking abortion care. The Trump administration says it will only prosecute individuals who unlawfully block access to abortion clinics and reproductive health centers in “extraordinary circumstances,” such as killing someone or causing serious bodily or property harm. Trump also pardoned 23 people convicted under the law.

Also on Friday, Trump reinstated and expanded the so-called Mexico City policy, also referred to as the “global gag rule,” which cuts off U.S. aid to any overseas group that provides abortion services, information or advocacy.

South Korean prosecutors have charged impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol with insurrection after his failed attempt to impose martial law in December, which plunged the country into political turmoil. The insurrection charge could lead to a sentence of life imprisonment for Yoon, or even the death penalty, though South Korea has not carried out an execution in decades.

In the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, M23 rebels say they’ve seized Goma, the capital of North Kivu province. U.N. chief António Guterres called on Rwandan forces to immediately withdraw from the DRC and end its support for M23 fighters, while the Congolese government called Goma’s capture a “declaration of war” by Rwanda. Fighting across the Congo-Rwanda border has also been reported. Some 400,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in eastern Congo since the start of the year as M23 fighters advanced toward Goma, compounding an already disastrous humanitarian situation. Over the weekend, the U.N. moved to evacuate its staff in the area after 13 U.N. peacekeeper soldiers were killed fighting the M23.

Following an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council Sunday, Congolese Foreign Minister Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner called the unfolding situation in her country one of “its darkest periods in recent history” and called for the Security Council to sanction Rwanda and impose an embargo on the exploitation of natural resources.

Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner: “Since January 6, 2025, these illegal forces have intensified their attacks, taking over strategic localities such as Katale, Masisi, displacing millions of civilians and destroying vital infrastructure and committing massive human rights violations. These acts are not only attacks against the people of the Congo, but also against the fundamental principles that govern peaceful coexistence between nations.”

In Sudan, an estimated 70 people were killed by a drone strike on a hospital in North Darfur’s besieged city of El Fasher. The World Health Organization says the Saudi Teaching Maternal Hospital — the last functioning hospital in the area — was “packed with patients receiving care” when the attack occurred. Sudan’s government blamed the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, for the massacre. Prior to the assault, RSF had given a “48-hour ultimatum” to the Sudanese Armed Forces to leave El Fasher, warning of escalating attacks.

The hospital attack also came a day after two U.S. lawmakers said the United Arab Emirates is continuing to provide arms to the RSF, which the Biden administration recently accused of committing genocide in Sudan.

Over 14 million people have been displaced by the war, which started in April 2023. Three million of those have become refugees, most of them crossing the border to South Sudan and Chad.

In news from Germany, the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, took a break from advising Donald Trump on Saturday to give a surprise virtual address to the far-right party AfD, or Alternative for Germany. Musk’s appearance came just days after he sparked controversy for twice giving a Nazi salute at a Trump inaugural event. Among other things, Musk told attendees it’s time to “move on” from “past guilt,” an apparent reference to Nazism and the Holocaust.

Elon Musk: “Well, first of all, I wanted to really say that I’m very excited for the AfD. … It’s good to be proud of German culture and German values and not to lose that in some sort of multiculturalism that dilutes everything.”

The U.S. Air Force says it will continue using an educational video about the Tuskegee Airmen, the first Black Air Force members, and another video about the first women Air Force members, after the videos were briefly pulled from the Air Force curriculum, triggering widespread backlash. The reversal comes after the videos were put under review as part of the Trump administration’s order to halt all efforts to promote DEI — that’s diversity, equity and inclusion.

Switzerland is facing widespread criticism for arresting and detaining the Palestinian American journalist Ali Abunimah of the online publication Electronic Intifada. The U.N. special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, Irene Khan, called his arrest “shocking news.” The U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in the Occupied Territories, Francesca Albanese, wrote, “The climate surrounding freedom of speech in Europe is becoming increasingly toxic, and we should all be concerned.” Abunimah was arrested ahead of a speaking event in Zurich.