Top US government officials have walked back on some of President Donald Trump’s proposals about taking over Gaza and resettling Palestinians permanently to neighbouring countries, after global condemnation and pushback from Middle East states.
Trump on Tuesday said the US would “take over” and “own” Gaza after resettling Palestinians elsewhere under an extraordinary redevelopment plan that he claimed could turn the enclave into “the Riviera of the Middle East”.
“The US will take over the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it, too. We’ll own it,” Trump said at the White House after talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, upending decades of US policy towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday the idea “was not meant as hostile”, describing it as an “offer to rebuild and to be in charge of the rebuilding” and a “generous move”.
At the same time, Rubio walked back Trump’s earlier assertion that Palestinians in Gaza needed to be permanently resettled in neighbouring countries, saying the idea was for them to leave the territory for an “interim” period of reconstruction and debris-clearing.
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White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt later hailed Trump’s Gaza proposal as historic and “outside of the box” but stressed that Washington would not fund Gaza’s reconstruction after more than 15 months of Israeli war and that its involvement “does not mean boots on the ground”.
“It’s a demolition site right now. It’s not a livable place for any human being,” she said. Leavitt added that Trump had been “very clear” that he expected Egypt, Jordan and others “to accept Palestinian refugees, temporarily, so that we can rebuild their home”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Trump’s proposal during an interview with Fox News on Wednesday night, describing it as “the first good idea that I’ve heard”.
“It’s a remarkable idea, and I think it should be really pursued, examined, pursued and done, because I think it will create a different future for everyone,” he said.
But Netanyahu also suggested it did not mean Palestinians leaving the territory forever. “They can leave, they can then come back, they can relocate and come back, but you have to rebuild Gaza,” he said.
Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz ordered the army on Thursday to prepare a plan to allow for the departure of Gaza residents from the Strip, Israeli media reported.
‘Tantamount to ethnic cleansing’
The United Nations warned that “any forced displacement of people would be tantamount to ethnic cleansing.”
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a speech to a UN committee that deals with the rights of Palestinians that “at its essence, the exercise of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people is about the right of Palestinians to simply live as human beings in their own land.”
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Palestinian officials and Arab leaders strongly rejected Trump’s proposal, insisting that any forced displacement of the Palestinians would be unacceptable.
Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Jordan’s King Abdullah II said the plan “would be a serious violation of international law, an obstacle to the two-state solution and a major destabilising force” for their countries.
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said the Kingdom rejected any attempts to remove Palestinians from their land in “a clear and explicit manner”, according to the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“The establishment 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 chaos” and said the people of Gaza would never allow their displacement.
Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority, condemned “any projects” intended 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-old resident of Khan Younis, told Al Jazeera that he would remain right by his demolished home.
“You see that pile of useless rubble?” he said, raising his cane to point at a demolished house. “That’s more precious than the United States and everything in it.”
More than 15 months of daily bombardment have turned Gaza into rubble and killed more than 61,000 Palestinians. Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff is largely credited with helping reach a ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel on January 19. Negotiations are under way to extend it.
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