Foreign ministers from Muslim nations on Saturday rejected calls by U.S. President Donald Trump to empty the Gaza Strip of its Palestinian population and backed a plan for an administrative committee of Palestinians to govern the territory to allow reconstruction to go ahead.

CAIRO/JERUSALEM: An Israeli air strike killed two Palestinians in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Saturday, medical sources said, as mediators pushed ahead with talks to extend a shaky 42-day ceasefire agreed in January between Israel and Hamas.

The onset of the Gaza war in October 2023 put Egypt on edge. Cairo is apprehensive about Israel’s potential strategy of forcibly locating Palestinians to the Sinai Peninsula, which is on its territory. Egyptian officials have deemed that scenario as a red line. Cairo doesn’t want to be seen as undermining the Palestinian cause.

Leaders across the Middle East have come under significant pressure to come up with a workable blueprint for reconstructing, securing, and governing Gaza at a time when the Israel-Hamas ceasefire is teetering and Israel, buoyed by Trump’s backing, increasingly appears to hold the upper hand in negotiations.

Egyptians have been angered by US President Donald Trump's proposal to displace Palestinians from Gaza, which has been devastated by the war between Israel and Hamas, but a video circulating online does not show the Arab nation's prime minister tearing up a copy of his country's peace agreement with Israel.

Egypt has been intensifying diplomatic efforts to achieve a Gaza ceasefire and advance the Strip's reconstruction

The U.N. food agency says it only has enough food supplies in the Gaza Strip to keep public kitchens and bakeries open for less than two weeks, after Israel halted the entry of food, fuel, medicine and other supplies.