Trump proposes U.S. control of Gaza

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President Donald Trump, speaking at a White House news conference Tuesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, announced that the U.S. would take ownership of the war-torn Gaza Strip after saying Palestinians have no choice but to leave their homes there.

"We'll own it," Trump said of Gaza. "We're going to take over that piece, develop it and create thousands and thousands of jobs, and it will be something the entire Middle East can be proud of," he said, adding that a “long-term ownership position” by the U.S. would bring “great stability to the Middle East.”

Asked who would live there, Trump said, “I envision the world people living there, the world’s people. You’ll make that into an international unbelievable place. I think the potential in the Gaza strip is unbelievable,” and it could be “the riviera of the Middle East.”

“Palestinians will live there. Many people will live there,” he added.

The president did not answer questions about the legality of essentially taking over a sovereign territory.

Netanyahu said one of his goals is to make sure Gaza never poses a threat to Israel again, and that “Trump sees a different future for that piece of land.”

“We’re talking about it,” Netanyahu said of Trump’s Gaza Strip suggestion. “I think it’s something that could change history and it worthwhile really pursuing this avenue.”

During Netanyahu's visit, Trump repeatedly called Gaza a "demolition site" and said that the Palestinians who are living there should be relocated, claiming they would be “thrilled” to live elsewhere and are only staying because they have "no alternative."

"The whole thing is a mess," Trump said of Gaza, which has been devastated by the Israel-Hamas war.

"I don't think people should be going back to Gaza. I think that Gaza has been very unlucky for them. They've lived like hell; they've lived like you're living in hell. Gaza is not a place for people to be living. The only reason they want to go back, and I believe this strongly, is they have no alternative. What's the alternative? Go where? If they had an alternative, they'd much rather not go back to Gaza and live in a beautiful alternative that's safe," he said.

Trump said the approximately 1.8 million Palestinians should be moved to a new site or sites in other Arab countries, such as Egypt or Jordan, where they can "live in peace."

"They say they’re not going to accept" them, Trump said of Egypt and Jordan. "I say they will, but I think other countries will accept also."

Trump said that Palestinians going to a new land "would be a lot better than going back to Gaza, which has had decades and decades of death."

"They'll be resettled in areas where they can live a beautiful life," he said.

Asked whether that would mean forcibly displacing people, Trump said, "I don't think so."

A spokesman for Hamas, Sami Abu Zuhri, blasted Trump’s remarks, saying, “We consider it a recipe for creating chaos and tension in the region.”

“Our people in the Gaza Strip will not allow these plans to pass, and what is required is to end the occupation and aggression against our people, not expel them from their land,” he said.

Criticism and concern spread across both sides of the aisle Tuesday night after President Donald Trump announced that the United States “will take over the Gaza Strip.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., called the proposal “problematic,” adding that he does not think his constituents would be excited about sending U.S. soldiers to take control of Gaza.

“We’ll see what the Arab world says, but you know, that’d be problematic at many, many levels,” Graham said.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., slammed the proposal as “deranged” and “nuts,” calling U.S. military presence in the region “a magnet for trouble.”

“I don’t know where this came from, but I can tell you ... that would not get many expressions of support from Democrats or Republicans up here,” said Kaine, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee.

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said there were “a few kinks in that slinky.”

Asked to elaborate, he said: "Obviously it's not going to happen. I don’t know under what circumstance it would make sense even, even for Israel. Now, if Israel is asking for the United States to come in and provide some assistance to ensure that Hamas can never do again what they did, I’m in. But us taking over seems like a bit of a stretch.”

Upon hearing of Trump's remarks, Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., clutched his face in shock, saying he was at a loss for words.

“You can report that I was speechless,” said Coons, a Foreign Relations Committee member. “That’s insane. I can’t think of a place on Earth that would welcome American troops less and where any positive outcome is less likely.”

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said the proposal failed to address Palestinians’ concerns. Asked whether it was something the United States could handle safely, she said: “I don’t think it’s something that’s in America’s best interest.”

Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., the only Palestinian American member of Congress, was blunter.

She called the proposal “ethnic cleansing” and “fanatical bull---" on X.

Some congressional Republicans voiced their support for Trump's remarks.

Reps. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., and Richard Hudson, R-N.C., both members of the House Republican Israel Caucus, were among those supporting the proposal.

“President Trump will never stop working to ensure historic and lasting PEACE!” Hudson wrote on X.

“Let’s turn Gaza into Mar-A-Lago,” Mace said in her post

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., called the proposal “problematic,” adding that he does not think his constituents would be excited about sending U.S. soldiers to take control of Gaza.

“We’ll see what the Arab world says, but you know, that’d be problematic at many, many levels,” Graham said.

It's a bit difficult to determine whether Trump says these things because he is so stupid that he thinks it is true or if he says these things because his Trumpanzees are so stupid that they think it is true.

The announcement prompted dismay among senior officials and diplomats at a private event in Washington on Tuesday evening. Multiple sources noticed two prominent Arab ambassadors leaving immediately when Trump made his comments, which people were listening to on their phones in real time.

Other diplomats reached later by NBC News from Europe and Asian capitals said there was widespread shock over the suggestion of removing the 2.2 million Palestinians in order to rebuild Gaza.

Even Trump ally and U.S. foreign policy maven Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., questioned the proposal.

“We’ll see what the Arab world says but you know that’d be problematic at many many levels,” he said.

Within hours, vital U.S. allies such as Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Jordan unequivocally, if diplomatically, rejected the idea of removing Palestinians from their lands.

“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia reiterates its firm rejection of any infringement on the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people,” the Saudi Foreign Ministry said in a statement Tuesday night. “This includes opposition to Israeli settlement policies, the annexation of Palestinian lands, and efforts to displace the Palestinian people from their homeland.”

The immediate and sometimes angry reaction to the proposal is an indication of how in Gaza, Trump has alighted on a strip of land as emotionally charged and politically intractable as it is tiny and ruined. Most governments in the world recognize it as part of a future Palestinian state. And though the United States does not, it has been involved in six decades of peacemaking efforts in support of a two-state solution to the conflict.

Trump’s surprise announcement, at a news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington, upended that, as well as Trump’s own peace plan unveiled in 2019. That outlined Gaza as part of a Palestinian state and stressed that Palestinians would not be uprooted.

On Inauguration Day, Trump briefly entered real estate developer mode and called Gaza “a phenomenal location on the sea” that needed a rebuild.

Tuesday’s news conference indicated he was serious, as he vowed the U.S. would take “long-term ownership” of the enclave.

He advocated ousting Palestinians in Gaza from their homes, first suggesting this would be permanent and then indicating they would be allowed back.

Trump’s comments come at a doubly precarious moment, with the U.S. helping negotiate the next stage of a ceasefire whose supporters hope will free the 79 remaining Israeli hostages, including 44 who are believed to be alive in exchange for Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons or detention.

A takeover and removal of Gaza’s population would be a grave contravention to international law, critics agreed.

“Trump’s proposal to push 2 million Palestinians out of Gaza and take ‘ownership’ by force if necessary is simply ethnic cleansing by another name,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said in a statement.

The idea of jettisoning Palestinians has previously been such a fringe, taboo idea that it has drawn widespread condemnation when mooted by far-right members of Netanyahu’s coalition.

Last month, under then-President Joe Biden, the State Department called this idea “inflammatory and irresponsible” when it was proposed by Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

The mere suggestion has painful historical echoes for Palestinians, 700,000 of whom were forcibly displaced from what became Israel during the 1948 “Nakba,” or catastrophe.

One saving grace for those opposed to Trump’s idea is that it is difficult to see how it might be implemented in the real world. The U.S. seizing control of the war-torn Gaza Strip, where Hamas fighters still operate, could likely require untold numbers of American troops deployed there, seemingly anathema to Trump’s opposition to foreign intervention.

The White House’s Leavitt also told reporters on Wednesday that U.S. involvement in the rebuilding of Gaza “does not mean boots on the ground.”

Whatever happens next, “it seems extremely improbable that the United States could take over Gaza within the confines of international law,” said Martti Koskenniemi, a professor of international law at University of Helsinki and former member of the United Nations’ International Law Commission.

To an international law expert with decades of experience, Trump “seems like a crazy man,” Koskenniemi said. “He’s not the first crazy man; there have been crazy men. But some of them are more powerful than others.”

The possibility that this may never happen has led some observers to wonder whether Trump might have different aims.

Trump’s comments could be “part of his extreme deal-making strategy that will lay the ground for broader Israeli-Saudi normalization talks,” Sanam Vakil, a director at the London think tank Chatham House said in an email. “He could be using this to pave the way to promote Saudi normalization in exchange for no annexation.”


Whether serious or not, most outside observers agree that Trump was making a full-throated statement of support for Netanyahu, relations with whom had become more distant under Biden.

The president “wants to show continued commitment to Israel to placate supporters and high-level donors in the United States,” Vakil said, as well as to “shore up Netanyahu’s fragile political balance of power” and help him in the next phase of ceasefire negotiations.

While Netanyahu visited the White House, he vowed to resume the war against Hamas in Gaza after the current ceasefire. Gerges believes Trump’s comments will help him do so.

“Benjamin Netanyahu is the happiest man in Israel today because he got exactly what he wanted,” he said. “Now he can go back to Israel and say: look, not only are we going to destroy Hamas, but Donald Trump wants the Palestinians out. We want to help him to bring about his visionary idea.”

Outraged Palestinians condemned President Donald Trump's claim the United States would seek ownership of the Gaza Strip and they would have no choice but to leave their homes in the war-torn enclave.

In Gaza's southern city of Khan Younis, Narmin Nour El Din, 29, told an NBC News crew that all Palestinians would reject Trump's suggestions.

“All the Palestinians refuse the idea and we will be insistent on our land,” she said, standing outside a tent encampment.

We ask Trump to leave the people to live in their land and to make the land more beautiful. To help the people here,” she said. “Not to take Gaza from them.”

Others like Hussein Abdel Jawad, 25, said they feared Trump’s plan would succeed and he felt clear that Trump had “business” ambitions for the enclave.

The plan has been criticized for ignoring the Palestinian cause at its most basic — the creation of an internationally recognized state. The United States, the Palestinians and the international community have long considered the Gaza Strip to be an integral part of this future state, although negotiations have languished for decades.

For some, Trump’s proposal will also be a reminder of the “Nakba” — the Arabic word for “catastrophe” used to describe the 1948 displacement of some 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were forced from their homes during the founding of Israel.

And Palestinian politicians of all persuasions were united in their condemnation of the comments.

Izzat Al-Rishq, a senior member of Hamas, which ruled Gaza after 2007 and has survived 15 months of war with Israel, said that the proposal reflected Trump’s “confusion and deep ignorance.”

President Mahmoud Abbas, a longtime opponent of Hamas whose Palestinian Authority governs the occupied West Bank, also rejected the comments. And Mustafa Barghouti, leader of his rival Palestinian National Initiative party, said in a statement that the “conspiracy of ethnic cleansing will not succeed in Gaza or the West Bank.”

In Israel, meanwhile, Trump’s comments were met with mixed reactions. Right-wing lawmakers were quick to embrace the proposals, while other prominent Israelis condemned it.

Calling Gaza a “failed experiment,” Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar suggested Israelis should consider the “new ideas put forward by the U.S. president.” The country's ultranationalist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, also said Trump's plan was the best response to the Hamas attack on Israel.

His fellow far-right lawmaker, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who resigned from his post as Israeli national security minister last month in protest against the ceasefire and hostage release deal with Hamas, called on Netanyahu to adopt Trump’s plan “and to begin promoting it immediately.”

Elsewhere, Gershon Baskin, an Israeli peace activist and veteran hostage negotiator, condemned Trump’s proposal. The U.S. “has no right to relocate Palestinians” or to “make decisions for the Palestinian people,” he said.

But Diana Buttu, a Palestinian-Canadian lawyer, said Trump’s plan was “not surprising, because it’s not new.” Buttu, a former spokesperson for the Palestine Liberation Organization, noted that Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, along with several other right-wing Israeli lawmakers, recently attended conferences calling for the resettlement of Gaza.

Per Yahoo newsfeed Today Feb 5 .A Democratic Senator ...has made an impassioned plea to file articles of impeachment on Trump
again this time for the suggestion of engaging in participating directly in the Genocidal Activities in Palestines Gaza .
One can only hope that this may gain traction in the Congress...These things that Trump is engaging in are not apparently in the will of the people.

Israel and countries mediating the cease-fire and hostage negotiations are struggling to assess whether U.S. President Donald Trump's declaration on Tuesday about expelling the residents of the Gaza Strip will derail the second stage of the cease-fire and hostage deal negotiations.

Israeli officials close to the negotiations expressed concerns that Trump's statement will impact the upcoming hostage release, this Saturday.

A senior Israeli official told Haaretz that "no one is yet clear on how Hamas will respond to the move." According to the official, "the correlation between the deal and Trump's vision is unclear. It could go either way. It may turn out that there's no link between the initiative and the release of the hostages."

"The negotiations will begin in a few days, and we'll be able to learn from the talks about the implications of [Trump's] declaration," he added.

Other Israeli sources who spoke to Haaretz did not rule out the possibility that Trump's initiative could undermine Hamas's willingness to continue releasing the hostages.

One source warned that Hamas may prefer to retain the hostages as bargaining chips, attempting to pressure both Israel and the United States to derail the president's plan.

"What interest does Hamas have in releasing all the hostages right now, knowing that its terms for ending the war won't be accepted [and knowing that] the United States supports removing them from Gaza and is promoting the evacuation of all its residents for many years?"

In addition to the possibility that Hamas will undermine the talks – which are set to resume in a few days – foreign sources told Haaretz that, according to their assessment, it may be possible to maneuver the group into advancing the deal in the coming weeks, given doubts surrounding Trump's intention and ability to implement his plan.

On the other hand, a source familiar with the mediators' attempts to advance the second stage of the deal believes that Hamas may cooperate and reach an agreement. "Trump's vision is an egg that hasn't hatched yet," he said.

"Its implementation will take a very long time. [Therefore,] if Qatar and Egypt apply significant pressure on Hamas, it'll have no choice but to continue. The big question is whether Netanyahu sees Trump's declaration as an opportunity to sabotage the deal's second stage," he added.

One of the theories raised by sources who spoke with Haaretz is that Trump's transfer initiative is a "political maneuver" aimed at preventing the collapse of Netanyahu's right-wing coalition, allowing the prime minister to move forward with the second stage of the deal without jeopardizing his cabinet's stability.

"The chances that Trump will be able to implement his plan are slim, especially in its current form," one source said, "but he is tying [Finance Minister Bezalel] Smotrich and [former National Security Minister Itamar] Ben-Gvir to Netanyahu even while moving forward toward] the second stage."

"Only later," he added, "as normalization talks with Saudi Arabia progress, will Trump be able to take credit for the initiative, the Saudis will be able to claim they saved the people of Gaza."

US President Donald Trump only came up in recent days with his idea — announced in a bombshell press conference alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday — of a US takeover of the Gaza Strip, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing administration officials. He ran the proposal by close allies and aides, while keeping it a secret even from administration officials who were tasked with preparing for his meeting with the premier, the report said.

According to the report, published Wednesday morning Israel time, officials outside of Trump’s innermost circle were not told about the president’s plan, which took even some of his most fervent supporters in the pro-Israel community by surprise. The report quoted one longtime pro-Israel fundraiser for Trump who called the idea “insane.”

The Gaza proposal is one of a number of presidential initiatives to expand American territory, the report noted, which some have dismissed but about which Trump is “deadly serious,” according to one of his advisers. The report cited Trump’s push to regain control of the Panama Canal, his fixation on acquiring Greenland, and his suggestions that Canada be made the US’s fifty-first state.

Already in the summer of 2024, Trump told Netanyahu in a phone call that Gaza would be a prime location for real estate development, and asked the premier what sort of hotels he thought could be built there, the Journal reported, citing someone with direct knowledge of the conversation. Trump did not, however, mention the US potentially taking over the enclave, in that conversation.

A senior Netanyahu aide told The Times of Israel on Wednesday that Israel did not know the full extent of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal ahead of time.

“We knew about the idea, but we were surprised by the scale,” the official said.

The Wall Street Journal report also connected Trump’s Gaza proposal to his history of presenting foreign conflicts in terms of potential real estate deals.

When the president, a former real estate developer, spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in fall 2024, he noted that the city of Odesa would be a good spot for new building projects, according to someone present at the discussion.

Trump reportedly made similar comments during his first administration to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, hoping the prospect of hotels and other developments along the Korean coast could entice the despot to shut down his nuclear program.

Trump’s son-in-law and former Middle East adviser Jared Kushner said in February 2024 that Gaza’s waterfront property “could be very valuable.”

A group that played a key role in Donald Trump’s voter outreach to the Arab American community alongside his allies is rebranding itself after the president said that the US would “take over” the Gaza Strip.

Bishara Bahbah, chairman of the group formerly known as Arab Americans for Trump, said during a phone interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday that the group would now be called Arab Americans for Peace.

This is just the realization of Jared Kushner's plan to justify ethnic cleansing by turning Gaza into real estate for Israelis.

https://www.newsweek.com/jared-kushners ... es-2026353

This is just the realization of Jared Kushner's plan to justify ethnic cleansing by turning Gaza into real estate for Israelis.

President Donald Trump doubled down on controversial plans for the Gaza Strip on Thursday, saying the Palestinian enclave would be "turned over to the United States by Israel" once the war there ends.

The comments in a string of posts on Truth Social followed his proposal for the U.S. to "take over" and "develop" Gaza, which were derided by rivals and even questioned by close allies earlier this week.

Israeli officials did not immediately comment on Trump's latest comments, though in an interview on Fox News on Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Trump's initial proposal.

Asked to comment on Trump’s statements on Thursday, a spokesperson referred NBC News to the Fox News interview. Later, Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Israel does not have details on Trump’s Gaza plan, according to Reuters.

In his post on Truth Social, Trump suggested that Palestinians could be "resettled in far safer and more beautiful communities, with new and modern homes, in the region," adding fresh confusion to discrepancies in his stance on the future of Palestinians in Gaza.

Trump also said that "no soldiers by the U.S. would be needed! Stability for the region would reign!! !"

Trump's Truth Social post comes after contradictory comments Tuesday on whether he foresaw Palestinians being able to live in a future Gaza that he described as the "riviera of the Middle East." He initially suggested that Palestinians could be permanently removed, before adding they would be able to live there, alongside others, after Gaza was rebuilt.

Israel's defense minister said Thursday that he had instructed his military to prepare a plan to allow Palestinians to voluntarily leave the Gaza Strip, after his country's leadership embraced President Donald Trump's widely condemned remarks in which he said the United States may seek ownership of the territory.

Welcoming what he called Trump's "bold initiative," Israel Katz said in a statement Thursday that Palestinians in Gaza "should be granted the freedom to leave and emigrate, as is customary everywhere in the world." He said the plan would include "exit options" for Palestinians to leave Gaza via land crossings, with the possibility of "special arrangements" for departures by sea and air.

Katz's plan would represent a major policy shift for Israel, which — along with Egypt — has maintained a land, air and sea blockade on the enclave since 2007, when Hamas took power two years after Israel withdrew from the territory following 38 years of occupation.

Barred from leaving the territory without Israeli-issued exit permits, Palestinians have effectively been trapped in a war zone.

In Gaza, Palestinians have expressed outrage over the threat Trump's plan poses to the future recognition of Palestinian statehood.

"We spent a year and four months in the war and did not leave our country, so is it expected that we will leave it now?" Abu Saad Al-Daada told NBC News' crew on the ground Wednesday in Khan Younis.