President Trump touted the 2020 Abraham Accords that established formal ties between Israel and four Arab countries as one of the biggest foreign policy achievements of his first term.

Now he is pursuing his long-desired goal of getting Saudi Arabia to join the accords — but he may have just dealt himself a serious setback. Mr. Trump’s proposal to transfer all two million Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip and then rebuild the enclave as the “Riviera of the Middle East” has antagonized some of the very people he needs to seal the deal.

The Gaza idea was swiftly rejected by Arab countries, among them Saudi Arabia. The Gulf powerhouse released a pre-dawn statement right after Mr. Trump floated the proposal on Tuesday evening alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in Washington.

The kingdom made clear that it is standing by its demand that a Palestinian state first be established before it will normalize relations with Israel. The precondition, which the Saudis have insisted on for the past year, is “nonnegotiable and not subject to compromises,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.

The statement directly contradicted Mr. Trump, who had just told reporters in Washington that Saudi Arabia had dropped the precondition. One senior Saudi royal said what the American leader was proposing would be tantamount to an “ethnic cleansing” of Gaza.

By proposing to “clean out” Gaza, Mr. Trump has earned little but suspicion and anger in Arab countries. Efforts by the American administration to soften the stance, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggesting that Gazans would be relocated only temporarily, have done little to mollify them.

The issue of Palestinian statehood is at the heart of the controversy over Mr. Trump’s Gaza proposal. For many Arabs, displacing Palestinians is anathema because it would shred their hopes for an independent state.

Egypt and Jordan, the countries Mr. Trump has suggested could be persuaded to take in Gazans, have publicly remained adamant that they would never accept a mass displacement of Palestinians. Officials, journalists and analysts in both countries said history spoke for itself: When Palestinians have been forced from their homes, they have not been allowed back.

Since the war in Gaza, both countries have been taking in Palestinians in need of medical attention. Egypt has accepted at least 100,000 medical evacuees and others who fled the neighboring enclave. Jordan, much of whose population is of Palestinian descent, is treating dozens of injured people from Gaza.

But participating in any forcible or permanent displacement of Palestinians from Gaza would be “morally and legally horrifying,” said Abdel Monem Saied Aly, a pro-government Egyptian political analyst and columnist.

Given the Saudi population’s broad support for the Palestinians, it would be difficult for the government to accept any agreement that does not address their aspirations for statehood. Public outrage in the kingdom over the war, and now over Mr. Trump’s proposal to empty Gaza, has complicated the prospects of a deal with Israel that was already going to be difficult to pull off.

Before Mr. Trump took office for his second term, there was some cause for modest optimism that Saudi-Israel normalization might move forward. A cease-fire between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas was reached on the eve of Mr. Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration. And the new American president has for years fostered a good working relationship with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia.

But now, some strains seem to be emerging in that relationship.

Prince Turki al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia’s former spy chief and former ambassador to the United States, told CNN on Wednesday that Mr. Trump “will get an earful from the leadership here” not only about the lack of wisdom in what he is proposing but also the injustice of “ethnic cleansing.”

As if to underscore his point, he wore a Palestinian black-and-white checked kaffiyeh in lieu of his traditional white headdress.

The four Arab governments that signed the Abraham Accords — the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan — did so despite criticisms that they were giving up on what had for decades been the Arab precondition for any ties with Israel, the establishment of a Palestinian state.

When Bahrain and the Emirates became the first two nations to sign the agreements, the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, called it “a stab in the back of the Palestinian people.” Mr. Abbas governs parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

After 15 months of war in Gaza, outraged Arab publics are unlikely to accept any similar compromises now and the Israeli government led by Mr. Netanyahu firmly opposes Palestinian statehood.

“If normalization with Saudi Arabia depends on progress toward a Palestinian state even by a millimeter, it won’t happen. Period,” Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich was quoted as saying by Israel’s army radio last month.

The Saudis sat out the historic signing of the Abraham Accords, but when the deal expanded to include Morocco and Sudan, the Saudi crown prince called Israel a “potential ally” in a 2022 interview with The Atlantic.

In September 2023, the crown prince became the first leader of the kingdom to openly discuss the possibility of establishing relations with Israel in exchange for a defense pact with the United States and help with developing a civilian nuclear program. He did not mention Palestinian statehood as a condition.

In an interview with Fox News at that time, the crown prince said such an agreement would require “a good life for the Palestinians.” The indications back then pointed to the possibility that Saudi Arabia, too, might be willing to scale back its insistence on a Palestinian state before forging ties with Israel.

Then came the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed about 1,200 people. The 15-month Israeli military campaign that followed killed more than 46,000 people in Gaza, according to local health officials, who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants. The war devastated the densely populated and impoverished territory.

Since the war, the Saudi government has shifted its tone, saying that the region needs to be on an irreversible path to statehood for the Palestinians.

“We do have some red lines,” Prince Khalid bin Bandar, the Saudi ambassador to the United Kingdom, said late last month. “And for us to end the last 75 years of pain and suffering caused by one problem has to include a Palestinian state.”

It is possible that both Mr. Trump and the Saudi leadership are laying out maximalist positions as starting points in a negotiation, and will shift at some point to reach a compromise.

Many people in the four countries that normalized ties with Israel have been horrified by the war in Gaza and have publicly protested the accord. While freedom of association and assembly remain highly restricted in Bahrain, the government allowed the protests.

Though Egypt and Jordan have had peace treaties with the Israelis for decades, their publics never warmed to Israel, and ties have been severely strained by the war.

Egyptian officials told foreign diplomats in Cairo this week that their rejection of Gazan displacement was unwavering. In public, they reiterated that Egypt was focused on putting the cease-fire agreement into effect and delivering humanitarian aid to the Palestinians there.

Egypt “affirms its complete rejection of any proposal or concept aimed at eliminating the Palestinian cause through uprooting or displacing from their historic homeland and its seizure, whether on a temporary or permanent basis,” Egypt’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

Political analysts close to the governments in Egypt and Jordan suggested that the two countries’ leaders would try to persuade Mr. Trump to accept an alternative plan for Gaza’s recovery involving aid and assistance from their countries.

“Egypt and Jordan have been historically engaged in the Palestinian cause, and they have to be an integral part of any solution,” said Khaled Okasha, director of the Egyptian Center for Thought and Strategic Studies, a government-aligned think tank. “But not the one that Trump is suggesting.”

Fatima AbdulKarim contributed reporting from Ramallah, in the West Bank.

Salim Iskef had just bought a house and his upcoming wedding was going to be the high point of the life he was building in Sweden, a decade after escaping war in Syria.

Instead, on Thursday, hundreds of people filed into the church where he was meant to marry in July, to attend his funeral.

“We had decided how many children we wanted to have,” said Kareen Elia, Mr. Iskef’s fiancée.

Mr. Iskef, 28, was one of 10 people killed on Tuesday by a man who went on a shooting spree at an adult education center in the city of Orebro. Sweden’s prime minister has called it the worst mass shooting in the country’s history.

The shooting has left the country stunned, trying to understand how a nation at peace and known for high living standards also has one of the highest rates of gun violence in the European Union.

In recent years, Sweden has revisited its once-welcoming asylum policies, with many Swedes souring on immigration and blaming it for rising crime and violence. That view, in turn, has boosted the popularity of anti-immigrant politicians, primarily on the far right.

For some immigrants, the massacre in Orebro — apparently committed by a Swede — at a center frequented by migrants, Campus Risbergska, reinforced the sense that their adopted country no longer felt welcoming.

“When we came to Sweden, it felt like a safe country; we could adapt to society,” said Ms. Elia, who had also fled Syria. “But we don’t have that same feeling of security anymore. There are things happening all the time.”

Mr. Iskef arrived in 2015 from Aleppo, Syria, quickly learned Swedish and found work at a travel agency. When the coronavirus hit, he enrolled at Campus Risbergska. For many migrants, the center had become a way into Swedish society, through language and education.

Orebro, once Sweden’s shoemaking capital, has grown and become steadily more diverse as Sweden has absorbed waves of newcomers: refugees from wars in the Balkans in the 1990s and then from wars in the Middle East and the Horn of Africa in this century. Between 2016 and 2018, as many as 10,000 people moved to the city, said Erik Blohm, Orebro’s head of urban planning.

As the city’s demographics changed, so did its services. Campus Risbergska was once a high school two miles from the city center that closed down in 2016 as students dwindled. In 2017, it reopened as an adult education center that offered free Swedish lessons for immigrants, as well as training for jobs ranging from construction to child care, and classes toward a high school diploma, Mr. Blohm said.

The city recognizes that a key to immigrant success “is to integrate people and get them to work,” he said.

While the growth countered a declining native population, some neighborhoods became crowded with new arrivals who could not afford housing elsewhere, and were plagued by the criminal gangs fueling Sweden’s rising crime. Vivalla, an area in the city center that is one of Orebro’s most diverse communities, is also one of those categorized by the police as a vulnerable neighborhood with heightened threats to safety.

This week, residents gathered at a community center there to voice their fears and frustrations.

Much of the talk in the neighborhood has been about what the reaction would have been if the gunman had been an immigrant, “someone who looked like one of us,” said Cissi, a youth worker who asked that her surname not be used for fear of retribution.

There is also growing resentment among the young people she works with, who know that “the right is very active,” she added. “They don’t feel welcome in society because of what they look like.”

The police have not publicly identified the gunman, who was found dead in addition to 10 others, or shared any details about a possible motive. Swedish news outlets have identified him as Rickard Andersson, 35, who lived alone in an apartment near the school. The New York Times has not independently confirmed his identity.

The shooting has prompted debates about gun violence and gang wars fueled by the drug trade. Sweden began keeping national figures on shootings less than nine years ago, during a crime wave. There were 281 shootings in 2017, the first full year figures were collected; the number peaked at 391 in 2022 and then fell to 296 in 2024, according to police figures.

On Friday, the government announced a plan to tighten already strict gun laws, making it more difficult to gain access to semiautomatic weapons. It will also enhance police and medical checks in license applications.

New gun legislation was already being planned, based on the findings of a 2022 inquiry. After the Orebro attack, lawmakers moved to fast track the measure.

Police investigators said this week that they had traced four firearm licenses to the suspect. At the scene, the police said, they found the gunman’s body with three weapons, including what appeared to be a rifle, and a large cache of ammunition.

“We do not know the motive of this perpetrator, but we understand that one of the consequences is fear among migrants,” said Christer Mattsson, director of the Segerstedt Institute, which studies violence spurred by prejudice at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. “And we have to allow that fear to become part of that discussion.”

At vocational colleges across the country, migrants are feeling more vulnerable in the wake of the attack, said Michael Williams, a board member of the Swedish Network of Refugee Support Groups, known by the acronym FARR. The attack compounded the sense of unease that migrants and asylum seekers already feel in Sweden.

A decade ago, Sweden proudly took in tens of thousands of refugees, streaming into Europe from wars in Syria and Afghanistan. But that generosity soon waned as migration strained the public resources of Sweden, a nation of 10.5 million people, and fanned resentment toward newcomers.

The 2022 election produced a conservative governing coalition of Sweden’s Moderates, Liberals and Christian Democrats, all parties that had embraced policies to limit migration, cap benefits for migrants and create a stricter path toward integration.

The coalition needed the votes of the Sweden Democrats, a nationalist, anti-immigrant right-wing party, to win majority support and form a government. The Sweden Democrats remain outside the government, but with some influence over it.

The new government has passed laws targeting criminal gangs, laws that Mr. Williams said disproportionately affect migrants and asylum seekers, who often live in high-crime areas.

The country has moved far from its former commitment to the right to asylum, which made it a haven for those fleeing war. Sweden’s new immigration policy is tough on family migration and describes immigrants who do not have the express right to remain as a “shadow society.”

“The parties say they want integration, but their policies are pushing to make integration impossible,” Mr. Williams said.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada on Friday made his first comments in response to President Trump’s repeated statements that he wants to annex Canada and make it the 51st state.

Mr. Trudeau made clear that he did not regard Mr. Trump’s statements as having been made in jest and believes annexation is something Canada needs to treat as a serious threat.

And he believes he knows why Mr. Trump covets Canada.

“I suggest that not only does the Trump administration know how many critical minerals we have, but that may be even why they keep talking about absorbing us and making us the 51st state,” Mr. Trudeau told a gathering of company executives and business leaders in Toronto, according to people in the room who listened to his comments.

The news media had been asked to leave the room at the time Mr. Trudeau delivered his comments, but at least two news outlets, The Toronto Star and the CBC, were able to hear them and record them. Mr. Trudeau’s office declined to provide details of what the prime minister said.

“They’re very aware of our resources,” Mr. Trudeau added, “of what we have, and they very much want to be able to benefit from those.”

And he continued: “But Mr. Trump has it in mind that one of the easiest ways of doing that is absorbing our country. And it is a real thing.”

Mr. Trump has been talking about annexing Canada for weeks as he has laid the groundwork for plans to impose 25 percent tariffs on Canadian exports to the United States.

On Monday, Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Trump agreed to a 30-day reprieve on tariffs after Canada pledged to adopt a more stringent plan to secure its border with the United States.

During comments to reporters that day in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump again raised the statehood issue. “What I’d like to see, Canada become our 51st state,” he said. “I’d love to see that, but some people say that would be a long shot,” he added.

Canada is home to 31 minerals considered critical for use in various industries, including for electric car batteries, solar panels and semiconductors. Of those, Canada is prioritizing lithium, graphite, nickel, copper, cobalt and rare earth elements as part of a strategy to position itself as a leader in the global transition away from fossil fuels.

The supply chain is deeply integrated, and the health of the U.S. economy depends on Canada, said François-Philippe Champagne, Canada’s industry minister.

“This is about a confident Canada,” Mr. Champagne told reporters at Friday’s meeting.

As part of its plan to fend off tariffs, Canada is implementing a border security plan in response to Mr. Trump’s accusations that the country is contributing to “massive” fentanyl trafficking to the United States, even though Canada is responsible for a tiny fraction of the fentanyl crossing the border.

Those measures include 10,000 personnel assigned to the border, along with helicopters, drones and canine teams. The government also said it would name a “fentanyl czar” to lead the response.

“We need to be very deliberate about how we continue to engage closely with the United States to make the case and demonstrate that Canada is responsible for a tiny part of the North American fentanyl problem,’’ Mr. Trudeau told the business leaders, “but that we are also bitterly touched by this tragedy.”