Trump says Palestinians have to leave Gaza permanently and us will ‘take over’ strip

Cnn
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President Donald Trump said Tuesday that the United States “will take over” Gaza Strip after saying earlier he does not believe there is a permanent future for Palestinians in Gaza.

“The United States is taking over the Gaza Strip, and we will also do a job with it,” Trump said during a joint press conference with his Israeli colleague Benjamin Netanyahu. “We will own it and be responsible for dismantling all the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on site, smooth the place and get rid of the broken buildings.”

In a speech earlier Tuesday, Trump suggested that Gazans move to a new place delivered by one or more nations in the Middle East.

“I mean they are there because they have no alternative. What do they have? It’s a big pile of rubble right now, ”Trump said moments before hosting Netanyahu for oval office negotiations.

Trump’s suggestion that Gazans leave the strip permanently constitute a provocative attitude that will love him to Israel’s most conservative politicians, but generally a non-starter for Israeli’s neighbors who have said they are unwilling to accept new Palestinian refugees from the enclave.

On Tuesday, Trump framed the case as a humanitarian and said it was impossible to think that someone would want to remain in the war -hired territory.

“Why will they return? The place has been hell, “Trump said, ignoring a reporter shouting,” Because it’s their home. ”

Instead of Gaza, he suggested that the Palestinians be a “good, fresh, beautiful piece of land” to live.

But during repeated questioning, Trump made it clear that he did not see a world where Palestinians ever return to Gaza.

“I don’t think people should return to Gaza. I think Gaza has been very unlucky to them. “He said,” Gaza is not a place for people to live. ”

Netanyahu, sitting with Trump in the Oval Office, smiled while Trump spoke. The Israeli leader was under conflicting pressure domestic in Washington to find out exactly where Trump is standing on the next phase of a ceasefire in Gaza.

But Trump’s weak views of Gaza as a permanent home for Palestinians were sure to give the grist to the right-wing allies by the Israeli leader who has called on Netanyahu to abandon the temporary ceasefire affected last month.

Netanyahus visits were expected to last several hours and include a common press conference, all intended to demonstrate Trump’s solidarity with Israel.

Comity between men could believe in a relationship that is more complicated than it sometimes seems – with nothing less than the future of the Middle East that potentially rides on Trump’s words.

Trump has claimed credit for the hostages-for-ceasefire agreement concluded in the days before joining the Embed and even officials of the outgoing Biden administration recognized that Trump’s impending arrival helped apply pressure to Israel and Hamas.

Netanyahu, who may be seeking to Ingratese to his host, praised Trump’s efforts.

“I think President Trump added great strength and powerful leadership to this effort,” Netanyahu said in the oval office.

But in order for all his propding to get the deal in the ink, Trump still has to oversee the remaining two phases of three -phase plan. He didn’t sound very sure one day before meeting Netanyahu.

“I have no insurance policies that it will last,” he said in the oval office, where he had called journalists to see him sign some papers. “And I’ve seen people brutalized. I have never – nobody has ever seen anything like it. ”

He sounded a little more optimistic a day later.

“We’ll see what happens. We are dealing with very complicated people, but a deal can definitely be done, ”he said with Netanyahu on Tuesday.

There is plenty of Trump and Netanyahu to discuss beyond the immediate question of the ceasefire agreement. There is the question of Gaza itself, as Trump has previously said, should be cleared for reconstruction, with the Palestinians living there moved to Egypt and Jordan (a topic of discussion that is likely to continue when Jordan’s king Abdullah visits the White House next week ).

“I want to see Jordan, I want to see Egypt take some,” Trump said again Tuesday, just before Netanyahu arrived. “Look, Gaza -Ting has not worked. It has never worked. ”

And then there is the prospect of a broader normalization of the relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors, mainly Saudi Arabia, that former President Joe Biden had been pursuing before October 7, 2023, attacked. Trump, who openly fires after a Nobel Peace Prize, can see his opportunity in such a persecution that could transform the entire Middle East and create a new bulwark against Iran, a regular enemy to Jerusalem and Riyadh.

Whether Netanyahu is interested in diplomacy – or whether he instead sees Trump’s arrival at Washington as a moment to take crucial actions against Iran that potentially even take his nuclear program – is still watching.

There is already speculation that Netanyahu could use the negotiations to take Trump’s temperature on a direct strike, grabbing a moment when Iranian proxies have been decimated, Iran’s nuclear ambitions appear to accelerate, and although he has friendlier ties to Washington .

In turn, Trump has not sounded particularly enthusiastic about starting a new conflict with Iran.

“Hopefully it can be prepared without having to worry about it. It would really be nice if it could be prepared without having to go any further step, ”he said last month when asked about a strike at Iranian facilities.

At the end of the bite period, the connections were so strained between the US and Israeli leaders that they went months without talking, despite the ongoing war in Gaza and intensive efforts from the bite’s helpers to mediate a ceasefire.

In the construction of the November election, there was a small question among the bite’s team that Netanyahu favored a Trump victory, believing he would enjoy a much wider transfer from the US government to prosecute his war’s goal with Trump In the office instead of the then President Kamala Harris.

These predictions have not been wrong.

Already, Trump has abolished grips of heavy bombing deliveries to Israel and rolled back one of the few bit-era policies intended to exert leverage in Israel in the midst of his war in Gaza.

He could go even further this week. Netanyahu and his delegation are planning to push Trump’s administration to move forward with billions of dollars in pending weapons sales, including thousands of new bombs, missiles, artillery and other weapons, during this week’s visit.

While some of the items could take a year or more to produce, delivery of the bombs would begin within the next few months.

If Trump goes ahead, it would represent a new level of support for Israel from the United States and a signal of Trump’s willingness to spoil Netanyahus requests in a moment of deep uncertainty in the Middle East.

But while Trump is popular in Israel, and Netanyahu enthusiastically greeted his return to the White House, things have not always been so cheerful.

When Netanyahu congratulated the bite with his election victory in 2020, Trump became furious at what he saw as betrayal. In the months followed, Trump accused Netanyahu of disloyalty and fumed to the acclaimed Israeli reporter Barak Ravid, now a CNN analyst: “F ** K HIM.”

Even three years later, after Hamas launched the worst terrorist attack in the history of Israel on October 7, 2023, it was clear that Trump’s sore feelings had not faded.

”(Netanyahu) was not prepared. He was not prepared, and Israel was not prepared, ”Trump said in an interview shortly after the attacks, comments that drew condemnation even from Republicans.

Netanyahu undoubtedly hopes the enmity will be forgotten when he visits Tuesday. It seems that his interaction with Trump will not contain any of the open disagreement that colored his relationship with the bite in the last year of his presidency.

What is clear is Netanyahus’s desire to gather a wide range of opinions while in town. The prime minister plans to remain in Washington far beyond his Tuesday interviews with Trump. He arrived at Blair House, the president’s guest, late Sunday and is expected to stay until the end of the week, including for meetings at Capitol Hill.

For all their enormous differences, Trump and Biden share a philosophy when it comes to engaging with their foreign colleagues: acting directly is the best way to make progress.

Eight years ago, Trump’s first foreign guest in the White House was the united kingdom of the then Prime Minister Theresa May, whose visit can best be remembered for photographs of May, and Trump strained his hands as they gently fell down a ramp along West Colonnade.

May’s early trip to Washington, partly designed to convince Trump not to withdraw from NATO, portend not very hot tape for the rest of its period. He repeatedly criticized her handling of Brexit, even though at the time May they withdrew from the office, they seemed to have patched things up.

With Netanyahu, however, Trump has a completely more immediate task.

This story and headline has been updated with further developments.