Tuesday Trump said that the United States should take control of Gaza and permanently move the entire Palestinian population of the devastated sea enclave, one of the most brazen ideas that any American leader has advanced over the years.
Hosting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel in the White House, Trump said that all the two million Palestinians from Gaza should be transferred to countries such as Egypt and Jordan due to the devastation caused by the Israel campaign against Hamas after the terrorist attack of 7 October, 2023.
“The United States will take control of the Gaza Strip and we will also do a job,” Trump said during a press conference on Tuesday evening. “We will have it and will be responsible” for the disposal of unexploded ammunition and the reconstruction of Gaza in a Mecca for work and tourism. Ring as the real estate developer who was once, Mr. Trump promised to transform him into “The Riviera del Middle East”.
While the president has framed the question as a humanitarian imperative and an opportunity for economic development, he actually reopened a geopolitical box of pandora with vast implications for the Middle East. The control over Gaza was one of the main flash points of the Arab-Israeli conflict for decades and the idea of transferring its Palestinian residents recalls an era in which the great western powers have redesigned the maps of the region and moved around populations without regard to local autonomy.
The idea that the United States takes control of the territory in the Middle East would have been a dramatic reversal for Mr. Trump, who in 2016 ran for the first time for extracting America from the region after the war in Iraq and denounced the construction of the nation of its predecessors. In revealing the plan, Trump did not mention any legal authority that gave him the right to assume the territory, nor has he faced the fact that the forced removal of a population violates international law and decades of consent of American foreign policy in both parts.
He made the proposal even if the United States were trying to guarantee the second phase of Israel-Hamas, which is designed to free the remaining hostages in Gaza and bring a permanent end to the fighting. Negotiators had described their task as exceptionally difficult even before Mr. Trump announced his idea of ousting the Palestinians from their homes.
Hamas, who has ruled in Gaza for most of the last two decades and is restored to check there now, immediately rejected the transfer of mass on Tuesday Tuesday, and Egypt and Jordan rejected the idea of taking on a great influx of Palestinians, given the fresh history, burden and destabilizing potential.
Sami Abu Zuhri, a high Hamas official, said that Mr. Trump’s transfer proposal was “a recipe for the creation of chaos and tension in the region”.
“Our people in Gaza will not allow these plans to pass,” he said in a declaration distributed by Hamas. “What is necessary is the end of employment and aggression against our people, not expelling them from their land”.
Trump greeted the opposition from Arab countries such as Egypt and Jordan, suggesting that his powers of persuasion would convince them.
“They say they won’t accept,” Trump said during a previous meeting with Mr. Netanyahu in the oval office. “I say they will do it.”
Mr. Netanyahu, sitting on the side of Mr. Trump, smiled with satisfaction while the president outlined his ideas for the first time. Later, during the joint press conference, the Israeli Prime Minister praised Mr. Trump.
“You cut the chase,” said Netanyahu to Mr. Trump. “See things that others refuse to see. You say things that others refuse to say, and after the jaws have dropped, people scratch their heads and they say: “You know, it is right.”
“This is the type of thought that will remove the Middle East and bring peace,” he added.
In his observations, Mr. Trump insisted on the fact that the Palestinians would quickly warm up to his idea.
“I don’t think people should return to Gaza,” said Trump. “I heard that Gaza was very unfortunate for them. They live like hell. They live as if they lived in hell. Gaza is not a place to live people, and the only reason they want to go back, and I think it is strongly because they have no alternatives. “
He suggested that the nations in the region could finance Gazas’ resettment in new places – perhaps “a good, fresh and beautiful piece of land” – which would provide better living conditions, either as a single territory or up to a dozen. “It would be my hope that we could do something really beautiful, really good, where they would not want to return,” he said without offering details on what this would entail.
When asked about how many Palestinians he had in mind, he said: “Everyone”, adding, “I would think they would be electrified”. Pressing repeatedly if you would force them to go even if they didn’t want to, Mr. Trump said: “I don’t think they will tell me no.”
Gaza has a long and tortured story of conflicts and crisis. Many Gaza are descendants of Palestinians who were forced to leave their homes during the 1948 war after the independence of Israel, an event known in the whole Arab world such as Nakba or Catastrophe. Now Mr. Trump is suggesting to be displaced again, even if the Geneva conventions – international agreements that the United States and Israel have both ratified – the forced transfer of the populations.
Egypt captured Gaza during the 1948 war and controlled it until Israel grabbed him, together with other Palestinian territories, in a 1967 war against a coalition of Arab nations that tried to destroy the Jewish state. The Palestinians in Gaza conducted a violent resistance for years later and Israel eventually retired from Gaza in 2005.
But within two years, Hamas, a declared enemy of Israel according to which the United States and other nations have designated a terrorist group, took control of the enclave and used it as a base for the war against Israel.
For years, Israel has blocked Gaza while Hamas shot Razzi and staged terrorist attacks, culminating in the October 2023 operation that killed 1,200 people and led to the capture of another 250. Israel reacted with an unstoppable military operation that killed Over 47,000 people, according to Gazan health officials, whose count does not distinguish between civil and fighters.
In the weeks following a cease the fire that the administration of President Joseph R. Biden Jr. negotiated and that Mr. Trump entered into force, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who have been repeatedly displaced throughout the war have returned to theirs Houses in Gaza to find them and their demolished communities. Steve Witkoff, sent to the Middle East of Mr. Trump, visited Gaza last week and said they would take 10 to 15 years to reconstruct.
“If I had damage that they had a penny of what I saw in Gaza, nobody would be allowed to go home,” said Witkoff to journalists on Tuesday. “It’s so dangerous. There are 30,000 unexploded ammunition. These are buildings that could overturn at any time. There are no usefulness. “
By collecting the theme later during the day, Trump said that it was not realistic that the Palestinians return to Gaza. “At this moment they have no alternatives”, but to leave, Trump told journalists before the arrival of Mr. Netanyahu.
“I mean, I’m there because they have no alternatives,” he said. “What do they have? At this moment it is a large pile of rubble. “He added:” I don’t know how they may want to stay. It’s a demolition site. It’s a pure demolition site. “
Trump suggested that the resetting of Palestinians would be similar to New York real estate projects on which he built his career. “If we could find the right piece of land, or numerous pieces of earth and build some really beautiful places with a lot of money in the area, this is certain,” he said. “I think it would be much better than to return to Gaza.”
“I see a long -term property position” for the United States, Trump said, adding that “all those I spoke love the idea that the United States can have that piece of land, developing and creating thousands of places of I work with something that will be magnificent. “
The summit of Mr. Trump with Mr. Netanyahu was his first meeting in person with another world leader from his return to power two weeks ago. It was part of a visit to more holidays in Washington by Mr. Netanyahu who was to demonstrate the close ties between the two leaders.
Trump and Mr. Netanyahu forged close collaboration during the president’s first mandate, but fell to his end for a series of issues, including the will of the Israeli leader to congratulate Mr. Biden for his victory in the elections of the 2020, that Mr. Trump insists that he won. Mr. Trump and Mr. Netanyahu tried to smooth out their fracture.
But Mr. Netanyahu participated in his meeting in contrast with Mr. Trump on various important issues, according to analysts, probably including how to deal with the nuclear ambitions of Iran and how quickly to end the war in Gaza.
The Trump administration clarified that he wants to see all the hostages from Hamas returned and then move on to a large deal that involves Saudi Arabia that formalizes relations with Israel.
Saudi Arabia reiterated support for an independent Palestinian state on Tuesday and said that the forging with Israel would depend on the creation of this state.
Tuesday morning the councilors of Trump told journalists that the president and Mr. Netanyahu were united behind the idea that Hamas should not have remained in power.
With the right government of Mr. Netanyahu in danger if the war ends with Hamas still in control in Gaza, and without another plan for the underway area, analysts expect.
“Netanyahu has made this Salami agreement,” said Shira Efron, senior director of political research at the Israel Policy Forum, a research group based in New York, referring to the three -phase agreement with Hamas. “He always plays for the time and kicks the can along the road.”
On Monday, in addition to anxiety in the region, the officials of the United States of intelligence believe that Iran is trying to build a more rota atomic weapon that could be developed quickly if the leadership in Tehran decided to do so.
It is not clear whether that decision has been made and the new president of Iran has indicated that he would like to start a negotiation with the administration of Mr. Trump even when the country’s nuclear scientists advance with their efforts.
Tuesday Trump has signed an order that directs a return to the “maximum pressure” policy on Iran through sanctions, but avoided hostile language and refused to say if he would have supported an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear structures, an indication of his interest in reaching an agreement. “This is one that I am torn,” he said while signing the order. “I hope we won’t have to use it a lot.”
Edward Wong Reports contributed by Washington e Rasgon man from Jerusalem. Ephratar Livni Research contribution.