President Donald Trump has said the US will “take over” the Gaza belt and that the Palestinians must permanently leave the enclave in the strongest indication that it wants the 2.2 million population to move to places such as Egypt and Jordan.
Speaking as he held talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Tuesday, Trump said that “all Palestinians in Gaza should be” restored “.
“The US will take over the Gaza bar and we will do a job with it as well. We will own it and be responsible for dismantling all the unexploded hazardous bombs and other weapons on the site,” he said After the meeting, speaking alongside Netanyahu.
Asked if he would send us troops to Gaza, Trump said: “We will do what is needed.. We will take over that place, we will develop it, we will create thousands of jobs And it will be something that the whole Middle East can be very proud of. “
Trump said he envisioned “representatives from around the world” living in Gaza, “Palestinians also,” he said, adding that he imagined Gaza could be the “Middle East Riviera”.
His proposal would increase US policy decades and fuel anger throughout the Arab world, where Washington’s allies have long warned against the forced displacement of the Palestinians.
Netanyahu, speaking alongside Trump, said his proposal was “it is worth paying attention to”.
“He sees a different future for that part of the land that has been in the focus of so much terrorism,” Netanyahu said. “We’re talking about it. He is exploring him with his people, with his staff. I think it’s something that can change the story. “
Egypt and Jordan have already rejected Trump’s plans to restore Palestinians outside Gaza after the US president last month said it was time to “clear” the enclave.
Trump said on Tuesday that he believed that leaders in Cairo and Aman, who both receive significant amounts of American aid, would “open their hearts and give us the kind of land we need to do so and people can live in harmony and peace. ”
The Arabs see movements such as similar to 1948, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced from their homes or left in the fighting that accompanied the founding of Israel. Palestinians refer to that period like nakba, or catastrophe.
The forced Palestinian relocation would destroy Western US allies, who have long supported a two-state solution to the prolonged Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Exactly what the American control of the Gaza belt could look like was unclear Tuesday evening.
Jonathan Panikoff, a former senior US intelligence official now in the Atlantic Council, said “would require a long -time engagement of tens of thousands of American troops” and “would bring to mind both Arab and street leaders unsuccessful American-state-state building in Iraq and Afghanistan. “
Jordan King Abdullah will meet Trump next week in Washington to make his case against the restoration of Palestinians outside Gaza.
Israel has reduced most of the dense ribbon populated in a desert scattered by the ruins since began a vicious vengeful attack after the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023.
Arab and European powers hope that a fragile ceasefire and a hostage agreement between Israel and the Palestinian militant group will lead to a permanent end of the war and enable the rebuilding of the belt to begin.
But Trump said: “If we can find the right part of the land, or numerous pieces of land, and build some really nice places with lots of money in the area.. I think that would be too Better than returning to Gaza, which has only had decades and decades of death. “
Trump on Tuesday also signed a memorandum that would direct his government to establish “maximum pressure” on Iran, just before meeting with Netanyahu, who considers the Nuclear program of Tehran an existential threat to Israel.
The president later said the order would “implement the most aggressive possible sanctions, push Iranian oil exports to zero and reduce the regime’s ability to finance terror throughout the region.”
US officials describes the move as a means of suppressing Tehran again at the negotiation table to discuss his nuclear program.
Trump said he was “unhappy” to sign the memorandum, but there was no other solution. “It is very simple. Iran may not have a nuclear weapon, ”he added.
As part of the effort, Trump indicated that he was seeking to curb oil exports to Iran, saying the US had the “right” to block the Iranian raw sale to other nations.
Brent’s raw future traded about $ 76 per barrel after a memorandum was signed, much higher than the low Tuesday of $ 74.15.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has been signing more for weeks by signaling more willingness to agree on a negotiated solution to ensure relief of sanctions and facilitate internal economic pressure.
His government has also made it clear that he wants to avoid military confrontation with the US and Israel.
During his first term, Trump raised a “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran, abandoning a 2015 nuclear agreement that Tehran signed with world power and imposing sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
In response, Tehran increased its nuclear activity and is now enriching uranium near the level of the gun rate.
