RIYADH, Saudi Arabia >> The leaders of Gulf Arab states met Friday to strategize with their Egyptian and Jordanian counterparts in an effort to counter President Donald Trump’s controversial proposal to redevelop the Gaza Strip under U.S. control and displace its Palestinian residents.

The meeting in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, was in preparation for a broader Arab League summit in Egypt on March 4. It ended after several hours of discussions, particularly of the nations’ “joint efforts in support of the Palestinian cause and developments in the Gaza Strip,” according to a statement from the Saudi government.

Trump’s suggestion this month that the United States might take control of Gaza, develop it into the “Riviera of the Middle East,” and relocate its Palestinian residents to neighboring countries like Egypt and Jordan was met with astonishment and outrage across the Arab world. His aides then reframed it as a challenge to leaders of the Middle East to come up with a better alternative, even as Trump continued to insist he could convince the two countries to accept Palestinians.

Arab governments scrambled to come up with one.

Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have been working together to forge an alternative idea for Gaza in which Arab countries would help fund and oversee reconstruction, while keeping the 2 million Palestinian residents in place and preserving the possibility of a Palestinian state, according to diplomats and officials briefed on the efforts.

Members of the Gulf Cooperation Council attended the meeting in Riyadh along with Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, and King Abdullah of Jordan. The Egyptian leader arrived in Riyadh on Thursday for preliminary talks with the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.

Speaking to reporters Wednesday before his departure for Saudi Arabia, el-Sissi reinforced the idea that Egypt’s proposals would “not involve forcible displacement” of Palestinians.

The Arab plan will focus on ideas that keep Palestinians inside Gaza to counter Trump call’s for Egypt and Jordan to take them in, an idea Arab countries have all rejected. Many in the Arab world would consider any forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza an ethnic cleansing and a war crime as well as a death knell for any future Palestinian state.