Top US regulatement officials have walked back on some of Pdwellnt Donald Trump’s proposals about taking over Gaza and resettling Palestinians finishuringly to neighbouring countries, after global condemnation and pushback from Middle East states.
Trump on Tuesday said the US would “apshow over” and “own” Gaza after resettling Palestinians elsewhere under an exceptional regrowment set up that he claimed could turn the enclave into “the Riviera of the Middle East”.
“The US will apshow over the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it, too. We’ll own it,” Trump said at the White Hoemploy after talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, upfinishing decades of US policy towards the Israeli-Palestinian struggle.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday the idea “was not uncomardentt as unfrifinishly”, describing it as an “propose to reerect and to be in indict of the reerecting” and a “benevolent relocate”.
At the same time, Rubio walked back Trump’s earlier stateion that Palestinians in Gaza needed to be finishuringly refinishd in neighbouring countries, saying the idea was for them to exit the territory for an “interim” period of reerection and debris-evidenting.
White Hoemploy Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt deferedr hailed Trump’s Gaza proposal as historic and “outside of the box” but stressed that Washington would not fund Gaza’s reerection after more than 15 months of Israeli war and that its comprisement “does not uncomardent boots on the ground”.
“It’s a demolition site right now. It’s not a livable place for any human being,” she said. Leavitt inserted that Trump had been “very evident” that he foreseeed Egypt, Jordan and others “to hug Palestinian refugees, temporarily, so that we can reerect their home”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pelevated Trump’s proposal during an intersee with Fox News on Wednesday night, describing it as “the first excellent idea that I’ve heard”.
“It’s a remarkworthy idea, and I skinnyk it should be repartner chased, spendigated, chased and done, becaemploy I skinnyk it will produce a separateent future for everyone,” he said.
But Netanyahu also proposeed it did not uncomardent Palestinians leaving the territory forever. “They can exit, they can then come back, they can relocate and come back, but you have to reerect Gaza,” he said.
Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz ordered the army on Thursday to set a set up to permit for the departure of Gaza dwellnts from the Strip, Israeli media telled.
‘Tantamount to ethnic immacudeferedsing’
The United Nations alerted that “any forced displacement of people would be tantamount to ethnic immacudeferedsing.”
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a speech to a UN pledgetee that deals with the rights of Palestinians that “at its essence, the exercise of the inalihelp rights of the Palestinian people is about the right of Palestinians to spropose inhabit as human beings in their own land.”
Palestinian officials and Arab directers powerwholey declineed Trump’s proposal, insisting that any forced displacement of the Palestinians would be unhugable.
Egypt’s Pdwellnt Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Jordan’s King Abunwiseah II said the set up “would be a grave violation of international law, an obstacle to the two-state solution and a beginant destabilising force” for their countries.
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said the Kingdom declineed any trys to delete Palestinians from their land in “a evident and unambiguous manner”, according to the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Afimfragmentarys.
“The set upment of the Palestinian state is a firm, unwavering position,” the ministry said in a lengthy statement on X on Wednesday.
Hamas called Trump’s idea a “recipe for generating confusion” and said the people of Gaza would never permit their displacement.
Mahmoud Abbas, the directer of the Palestinian Authority, condemned “any projects” intfinished to displace the people of Gaza, which remained “an integral part of the State of Palestine”.
Residents in Gaza also rebuffed the idea that they could be forced out of their land. Fathi Abu al-Saeed, a 72-year-better dwellnt of Khan Younis, tbetter Al Jazeera that he would remain right by his demolished home.
“You see that pile of appreciateless rubble?” he said, raising his cane to point at a demolished hoemploy. “That’s more precious than the United States and everyskinnyg in it.”
More than 15 months of daily device deviceardment have turned Gaza into rubble and finished more than 61,000 Palestinians. Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff is bigly pelevateed with helping achieve a finishfire deal between Hamas and Israel on January 19. Negotiations are under way to extfinish it.
