Trump Proposes U.S. Takeover of Gaza and Says Palestinians Should Move


President Trump declared on Tuesday that the United States ought to seize management of Gaza and completely displace your entire Palestinian inhabitants of the devastated seaside enclave, probably the most brazen concepts that any American chief has superior in years.

Hosting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on the White House, Mr. Trump mentioned that every one two million Palestinians from Gaza needs to be moved to international locations like Egypt and Jordan due to the devastation wrought by Israel’s marketing campaign in opposition to Hamas after the terrorist assault of Oct. 7, 2023.

“The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too,” Mr. Trump mentioned at a information convention Tuesday night. “We’ll own it and be responsible” for disposing of unexploded munitions and rebuilding Gaza right into a mecca for jobs and tourism. Sounding like the true property developer he as soon as was, Mr. Trump vowed to show it into “the Riviera of the Middle East.”

While the president framed the matter as a humanitarian crucial and an financial improvement alternative, he successfully reopened a geopolitical Pandora’s field with far-reaching implications for the Middle East. Control over Gaza has been one of many main flash factors of the Arab-Israeli battle for many years, and the thought of relocating its Palestinian residents recollects an period when nice Western powers redrew the maps of the area and moved round populations with out regard to native autonomy.

The notion of the United States taking on territory within the Middle East can be a dramatic reversal for Mr. Trump, who first ran for workplace in 2016 vowing to extract America from the area after the Iraq conflict and decried the nation-building of his predecessors. In unveiling the plan, Mr. Trump didn’t cite any authorized authority giving him the appropriate to take over the territory, nor did he deal with the truth that forcible elimination of a inhabitants violates worldwide regulation and a long time of American international coverage consensus in each events.

He made the proposal even because the United States was looking for to safe the Israel-Hamas cease-fire’s second section, which is designed to free the remaining hostages in Gaza and produce a everlasting finish to the combating. Negotiators had described their process as exceptionally tough even earlier than Mr. Trump introduced his concept of ousting Palestinians from their properties.

Hamas, which has dominated in Gaza for a lot of the previous 20 years and is re-establishing control there now, instantly rejected mass relocation on Tuesday, and Egypt and Jordan have rejected the idea of taking in a large influx of Palestinians, given the fraught historical past, burden and destabilizing potential.

Sami Abu Zuhri, a senior Hamas official, mentioned that Mr. Trump’s proposed relocation was “a recipe for creating chaos and tension in the region.”

“Our people in Gaza will not allow for these plans to come to pass,” he mentioned in an announcement distributed by Hamas. “What is needed is the end of the occupation and the aggression against our people, not expelling them from their land.”

Mr. Trump waved apart the opposition from Arab international locations like Egypt and Jordan, suggesting that his powers of persuasion would persuade them.

“They say they’re not going to accept,” Mr. Trump mentioned throughout an earlier assembly with Mr. Netanyahu within the Oval Office. “I say they will.”

Mr. Netanyahu, sitting at Mr. Trump’s facet, smiled with satisfaction because the president first outlined his concepts. Later, throughout the joint information convention, the Israeli prime minister heaped reward on Mr. Trump.

“You cut to the chase,” Mr. Netanyahu informed Mr. Trump. “You see things others refuse to see. You say things others refuse to say, and after the jaws dropped, people scratch their heads and they say, ‘you know, he’s right.’”

“This is the kind of thinking that will reshape the Middle East and bring peace,” he added.

In his remarks, Mr. Trump insisted that Palestinians would shortly heat to his concept.

“I don’t think people should be going back to Gaza,” Mr. Trump mentioned. “I heard that Gaza has been very unlucky for them. They live like hell. They live like they’re living in hell. Gaza is not a place for people to be living, and the only reason they want to go back, and I believe this strongly, is because they have no alternative.”

He steered that nations within the area may finance the resettlement of Gazans to new locations — maybe “a good, fresh, beautiful piece of land” — that would offer higher residing circumstances, both as a single territory or as many as a dozen. “It would be my hope that we could do something really nice, really good, where they wouldn’t want to return,” he mentioned with out providing particulars of what that may entail.

Asked what number of Palestinians he had in thoughts, he mentioned, “all of them,” including, “I would think that they would be thrilled.” Pressed repeatedly on whether or not he would power them to go even when they didn’t wish to, Mr. Trump mentioned, “I don’t think they’re going to tell me no.”

Gaza has a protracted and tortured historical past of battle and disaster. Many Gazans are descendants of Palestinians who had been pressured out of their properties throughout the 1948 conflict after Israel’s independence, an occasion recognized across the Arab world because the Nakba, or disaster. Now Mr. Trump is suggesting that they be displaced once more, although the Geneva Conventions — worldwide agreements that the United States and Israel each ratified — bar forcible relocation of populations.

Egypt captured Gaza throughout the 1948 conflict and managed it till Israel seized it, together with different Palestinian territory, in a 1967 conflict in opposition to a coalition of Arab nations looking for to destroy the Jewish state. Palestinians in Gaza waged violent resistance for years afterward, and Israel ultimately withdrew from Gaza in 2005.

But inside two years, Hamas, an avowed enemy of Israel that the United States and different nations have designated a terrorist group, took management of the enclave and used it as a base for conflict in opposition to Israel.

For years, Israel blockaded Gaza whereas Hamas fired rockets and staged terrorist assaults, culminating within the October 2023 operation that killed 1,200 folks and led to the seize of 250 extra. Israel retaliated with an unrelenting army operation that killed greater than 47,000 folks, in accordance with Gazan well being officers, whose rely doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants.

In the weeks since a cease-fire that President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s administration negotiated and that Mr. Trump pushed got here into impact, a whole lot of hundreds of Palestinians who had been repeatedly displaced all through the conflict have returned to their properties in Gaza to seek out them and their communities demolished. Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s Middle East envoy, visited Gaza final week and mentioned it will take 10 to fifteen years to reconstruct.

“If you had damage that was one-hundredth of what I saw in Gaza, nobody would be allowed to go back to their homes,” Mr. Witkoff informed reporters on Tuesday. “That’s how dangerous it is. There’s 30,000 unexploded munitions. It is buildings that could tip over at any moment. There’s no utilities.”

Picking up on the theme later within the day, Mr. Trump mentioned it was not practical to have Palestinians return to Gaza. “They have no alternative right now” however to depart, Mr. Trump informed reporters earlier than Mr. Netanyahu’s arrival.

“I mean, they’re there because they have no alternative,” he mentioned. “What do they have? It is a big pile of rubble right now.” He added: “I don’t know how they could want to stay. It’s a demolition site. It’s a pure demolition site.”

Mr. Trump steered the resettlement of Palestinians can be akin to the New York actual property tasks he constructed his profession on. “If we could find the right piece of land, or numerous pieces of land, and build them some really nice places with plenty of money in the area, that’s for sure,” he mentioned. “I think that would be a lot better than going back to Gaza.”

“I do see a long-term ownership position” for the United States, Mr. Trump mentioned, including that “everybody I’ve spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land, developing and creating thousands of jobs with something that will be magnificent.”

Mr. Trump’s summit with Mr. Netanyahu was his first in-person assembly with one other world chief since his return to energy two weeks in the past. It was a part of a multiday go to to Washington by Mr. Netanyahu that was meant to display the shut ties between the 2 leaders.

Mr. Trump and Mr. Netanyahu solid an in depth partnership throughout the president’s first time period however fell out towards its finish over numerous points, together with the Israeli chief’s willingness to congratulate Mr. Biden on his victory within the 2020 election, which Mr. Trump insists he received. Mr. Trump and Mr. Netanyahu have since sought to easy over their rift.

But Mr. Netanyahu went into his assembly at odds with Mr. Trump on a number of necessary points, in accordance with analysts, seemingly together with the right way to confront Iran’s nuclear ambitions and the way shortly to finish the conflict in Gaza.

The Trump administration has made clear that it desires to see the entire hostages held by Hamas returned after which transfer on to a grand discount involving Saudi Arabia that formalizes relations with Israel.

Saudi Arabia reiterated support for an impartial Palestinian state on Tuesday and mentioned forging ties with Israel would rely on the creation of such a state.

Advisers to Mr. Trump informed reporters on Tuesday morning that the president and Mr. Netanyahu had been united behind the concept that Hamas shouldn’t be allowed to stay in energy.

With Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing government in jeopardy if the conflict ends with Hamas nonetheless in management in Gaza, and with no different plan for the world in place, analysts anticipate the Israeli prime minister to attempt to delay shifting towards a everlasting cease-fire.

“Netanyahu made this salami deal,” mentioned Shira Efron, the senior director of coverage analysis on the Israel Policy Forum, a New York-based analysis group, referring to the three-phased settlement with Hamas. “He’s always playing for time and kicking the can down the road.”

Adding to the nervousness within the area had been reports on Monday that U.S. intelligence officers imagine Iran is looking for to construct a cruder atomic weapon that may very well be developed shortly if the management in Tehran determined to take action.

It stays unclear whether or not that call has been made, and Iran’s new president has indicated that he wish to start a negotiation with Mr. Trump’s administration even because the nation’s nuclear scientists push forward with their efforts.

Mr. Trump on Tuesday signed an order directing a return to the coverage of “maximum pressure” on Iran via sanctions, however prevented hostile language and refused to say whether or not he would help an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear services, a sign of his curiosity in reaching an settlement. “This is one I’m torn about,” he mentioned as he signed the order. “Hopefully, we’re not going to have to use it very much.”

Edward Wong contributed reporting from Washington, and Adam Rasgon from Jerusalem. Ephrat Livni contributed analysis.



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