Gaza 'Riviera': What led up to Trump's call for US to 'take over' the enclave

As Palestinians trek back to their bombed-out homes in the Gaza Strip after 15 months of war between its ruling Hamas party and Israel, President Donald Trump's proposed turning it into the "Riviera of the Middle East" on Tuesday.

Standing next to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump proposed at a Tuesday night news conference to turn the enclave into an "international, unbelievable place" filled with "the world's people."

The comments came less than a month after Israel and Hamas reached a deal to pause the 15-month war in exchange for the release of some Israeli hostages still held in Gaza and some hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israel. That deal proposed a reconstruction phase of up to five years in the war-torn enclave.

Since Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, 62,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war according to the Hamas run Gaza Health Ministry, although some estimates of the death toll run higher than 70,000. Around one-quarter of all buildings in Gaza have been demolished and nearly 7 in 10 were damaged during the war.

Now, Trump officials are estimating rebuilding could take up to three times as long, raising questions and concerns for Palestinians, who Trump said on Tuesday should relocate to neighboring countries while the U.S. takes a "long-term ownership position."

Trump's Gaza "Riviera"

Trump's proposal recalled comments from his son-in-law Jared Kushner that Gaza's "waterfront property" could be "very valuable."

The comments also showed Trump is more amenable to Netanyahu's intentions for Gaza than former President Joe Biden. Netanyahu repeatedly rejected the urgings of the Biden administration to work towards a Palestinian state.

Netanyahu said last year that "the state of Israel has to control the entire area from the river to the sea," which includes the occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank.

“We obviously see it differently,” then-White House national security advisor John Kirby responded at the time.

Currently, around 90% of the around 2.2 million people that resided in Gaza have been displaced and little infrastructure in Gaza is still standing.

According to an Amnesty International report, statements by Israeli officials commanding the offensive indicate the "widespread and systematic" displacement was "intentional."

What is the Gaza Strip?

The Gaza Strip is a narrow sliver of land on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, bordering Israel and Egypt. At just less than 140 square miles, it is about the same size as Philadelphia, with one-third more people.

Before the current war with Israel, Gaza's population was 2.2 million. Around 1.4 million of those – 70% of Gazans – are refugees who were displaced from other areas, according to the United Nations.

The war displaced 90% of the population, around 1.9 million people.

On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel's border communities, killing 1,200 and taking around 250 hostage. Israel unleashed a siege, invasion and bombing of Gaza in response.

More: Violence escalates in the West Bank as Israel launches 'large-scale' raids. Why now?

Multiple humanitarian organizations now say Israel committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, including in its attacks on civilians, bombing of areas it told civilians to seek safety, and using starvation as a weapon of war.

Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former top defense official, are wanted by the International Criminal Court for those alleged crimes. Senior Hamas officials accused of orchestrating the Oct. 7 attack are also wanted for arrest by the court on war crimes charges.

Who owns the Gaza Strip?

Although Israel said its goal was to eliminate Hamas, the militant group still maintains control of the enclave.

Hamas took control of Gaza, taking over much of the enclave's government functions, after it won parliamentary elections in 2006.

Israel withdrew its forces in 2005, but it imposed blockades on the enclave's borders in 2007, as attacks broke out from both sides of the enclave's borders. The blockade prevented Palestinians from freely leaving and entering, leading Human Rights Watch to dub Gaza "the world's largest open air prison."

For some Palestinians, Trump's proposal ominously recalled the 1948 Nakba – catastrophe, in Arabic – when Palestinians were massively displaced after Israel's official establishment.

Israel first seized Gaza from Egyptian control nearly two decades later, during the 1967 Six-Day War. It maintained military control over the enclave for the next four decades, up until Hamas' takeover in the 2000's.

In the years of Israeli control, Palestinians launched two uprisings – called intifadas – in 1987 and 2000. More than 1,000 Israelis and more than 4,100 Palestinians were killed in the conflicts.

The Palestinian Authority took control of Gaza after it was signed into existence in the 1993 Oslo Accords – two agreements signed onto by Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization, which then represented Palestinians, to establish a peace process for the creation of separate states. The authority still controls small patches of the West Bank – the other Palestinian territory. Most of the West Bank remains under Israeli control.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What led to Trump's plan to 'take over' Gaza strip