Trump won’t rule out deploying troops to support rebuilding Gaza, sees ‘long-term’ U.S. ownership
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WASHINGTON — President Trump on Tuesday suggested that displaced Palestinians in the Gaza Strip be permanently resettled outside the war-torn territory and proposed the U.S. take “ownership” in redeveloping the area.
Trump’s audacious proposal appears certain to roil the next stage of talks meant to extend the tenuous cease-fire between Israel and Hamas and secure the release of the remaining hostages held in Gaza.
The provocative comments came as talks are ramping up this week with the promise of surging humanitarian aid and reconstruction supplies to help the people of Gaza recover after more than 15 months of devastating Israeli attacks. Now Trump wants to push roughly 1.8 million people to leave the land they have called home and claim it for the U.S., perhaps with American troops.
Trump outlined his thinking as he held talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, where the two leaders also discussed the cease-fire and hostage deal in the Israel-Hamas conflict and shared concerns about Iran.
“I don’t think people should be going back,” Trump said. “You can’t live in Gaza right now. I think we need another location. I think it should be a location that’s going to make people happy.”
A Palestinian woman who lost 10 children and her husband shelters in her shattered Gaza home, where four of her youngest remain buried under rubble.
Trump said the U.S. would take ownership of the Gaza Strip and redevelop it after Palestinians are resettled elsewhere and turn the territory into “the Riviera of the Middle East” in which the “world’s people”— including Palestinians — would live.
“We’ll make sure that it’s done world class,” Trump said. “It’ll be wonderful for the people — Palestinians, Palestinians mostly, we’re talking about.”
Egypt, Jordan and other U.S. allies in the Mideast have cautioned Trump that relocating Palestinians from Gaza would threaten Mideast stability, risk expanding the conflict and undermine a decades-long push by the U.S. and allies for a two-state solution.
Still, Trump insists the Palestinians “have no alternative” but to leave the “big pile of rubble” that is Gaza. He spoke out as his top aides stressed that a three-to-five-year timeline for reconstruction of the war-torn territory, as laid out in a temporary truce agreement, is not viable.
Last week, both Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Sisi and Jordanian King Abdullah II dismissed Trump’s calls to resettle Gazans.
Religious Zionists, most believing in a divine right to govern, now have outsize influence in Israel. The war in the Gaza Strip is energizing their settlement push.
But Trump said he believes Egypt and Jordan — as well as other countries, which he did not name — will ultimately agree to take in Palestinians.
“You look over the decades, it’s all death in Gaza,” Trump said. “This has been happening for years. It’s all death. If we can get a beautiful area to resettle people, permanently, in nice homes where they can be happy and not be shot and not be killed and not be knifed to death like what’s happening in Gaza.”
Trump also said he isn’t ruling out deploying U.S. troops to support reconstruction of Gaza. He envisions “long-term” U.S. ownership of a redevelopment of the territory.
“We’ll do what is necessary,” Trump said about the possibility of deploying American troops to fill any security vacuum.
Powerful Arab nations have rejected President Trump’s suggestion to relocate Palestinians from Gaza to neighboring Egypt and Jordan.
The White House’s focus on the future of Gaza comes as the nascent truce between Israel and the militant group Hamas hangs in the balance.
Netanyahu is facing competing pressure from his right-wing coalition to end the cease-fire with Hamas and from war-weary Israelis who want the remaining hostages home and the 15-month conflict to end.
Trump has renewed his call to Arab nations to relocate displaced Palestinians.
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, the Palestinian Authority and the Arab League joined Egypt and Jordan in rejecting plans to move Palestinians out of their territories in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Trump may be betting he can use the aid the U.S. provides Cairo and Amman as a bargaining tool. Hard-line, right-wing members of Netanyahu’s government have embraced the call to move displaced Palestinians out of Gaza.
“To me, it is unfair to explain to Palestinians that they might be back in five years,” Trump’s Mideast envoy, Steve Witkoff, told reporters. “That’s just preposterous.”
Trump also signaled that he may be reconsidering an independent Palestinian state as part of a broader two-state solution to the decades-long Israel-Palestinian conflict. “Well, a lot of plans change with time,” he told reporters when asked whether he was still committed to a plan like the one he laid out in 2020 that called for a Palestinian state.
Netanyahu’s arrival in Washington for the first foreign leader visit of Trump’s second term comes as the prime minister’s popular support is lagging.
The prime minister is in the middle of weeks-long testimony in an ongoing corruption trial that centers on allegations he exchanged favors with media moguls and wealthy associates. He has decried the accusations and said he is the victim of a “witch hunt.”
Being seen with Trump, who is popular in Israel, could help distract the public from the trial and boost Netanyahu’s standing.
Powerful forces in Middle East and, now, in Washington working against truce lasting beyond its first phase.
“We have the right leader of Israel, who’s done a great job,” Trump said of Netanyahu.
Netanyahu also praised the Trump leadership’s role in helping secure the hostage and cease-fire deal. “I’ll just tell you, I am happy they are here,” Netanyahu said of Trump and his administration.
It’s Netanyahu’s first travel outside Israel since the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants in November for him, his former defense minister and Hamas’ since-slain military chief, accusing them of crimes against humanity during the war in Gaza. The U.S. does not recognize the ICC’s authority over its citizens or territory.
Netanyahu, White House national security advisor Mike Waltz and Witkoff met Monday to begin brokering the next phase of the cease-fire agreement.
Netanyahu said he would send a delegation to Qatar to continue indirect talks with Hamas that are being mediated by the gulf Arab country, the first confirmation that those negotiations would continue. Netanyahu also said he would convene his security Cabinet to discuss Israel’s demands for the next phase of the cease-fire when he returns to Israel at the end of the week.
Eight hostages held by Hamas militants are returned to Israel as Palestinian prisoner releases proceed — but can the Gaza cease-fire hold?
The Israeli prime minister is under intense pressure from hard-right members of his governing coalition to abandon the cease-fire and resume fighting in Gaza to eliminate Hamas. Bezalel Smotrich, one of Netanyahu’s key partners, vows to topple the government if the war isn’t relaunched, a step that could lead to early elections.
Hamas, which has reasserted control over Gaza since the cease-fire began last month, has said it will not release hostages in the second phase without an end to the war and Israeli forces’ full withdrawal. Netanyahu, meanwhile, maintains that Israel is committed to victory over Hamas and the return of all the remaining hostages captured in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that killed about 1,200 people and triggered the war. More than 47,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry in the territory.
Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan is among the hostages, called on Trump to use American leverage to keep Netanyahu committed to the agreement.
Powerful Arab nations have rejected President Trump’s suggestion to relocate Palestinians from Gaza to neighboring Egypt and Jordan.
Matan, 24, is among those who are expected to be included in the second phase of the deal, when all remaining living hostages — including men under the age of 50 and male soldiers — are to be exchanged for a yet-to-be-determined number of Palestinian prisoners. The second phase is also expected to include the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.
Zangauker traveled to Washington from Israel for a rally outside the White House. “We are representative of the vast, vast majority of Israel. The ultra-extremists are blackmailing the prime minister to do their bidding.”
Madhani and Goldenberg write for the Associated Press. Madhani reported from Washington, Goldenberg from Tel Aviv. AP writer Melanie Lidman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
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