In major policy shift, Trump says the US should take over Gaza and does not rule out using US troops
WASHINGTON ? President Donald Trump, proposing a major shift in Middle East policy, called for the U.S. to take over the Gaza Strip and relocate roughly 2 million Palestinians to neighboring Arab countries. His goal, he said, is to turn the war-ravaged enclave into the "Riviera of the Middle East."
The statement escalates a proposal he made a week ago when Trump said he wanted to "clean out" the seaside enclave and send all its residents to Egypt and Jordan.
''We'll own it," Trump said in a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in his first White House meeting. "Level it out, create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area."
The extraordinary announcement upends decades of U.S. policy toward the Middle East. It is likely to enrage Palestinian leaders and Arab nations.
Trump did not rule out U.S. troops in Gaza to secure the territory.
Once rebuilt, Trump said Gaza could be repopulated with “the world’s people,” including Palestinians.
Trump pushes to resettle Palestinians in neighboring countries
A ceasefire deal agreed upon in January between Israel and Hamas – and which a Trump official helped broker – calls for a three- to five-year reconstruction phase in Gaza. But senior officials in the Trump administration now say it’s likely to take much longer.
Officials said Tuesday that it will take at least 10 to 15 years, and Trump is looking for solutions that will allow the more than 2 million Palestinians who reside there to live as normal lives as possible.
The "Gaza thing has not worked – it's never worked," Trump said. Palestinians, he said, "should get a good, fresh, beautiful piece of land, and we get some people to put up the money to build it and make it nice and make it habitable and enjoyable. If we could find the right piece of land, or numerous pieces of land, and build them some really nice places, with plenty of money in the area, that's for sure, I think that would be a lot better than going back to Gaza."
Gaza is controlled by Hamas, designated a terrorist organization by the United States and the international community. Hamas kidnapped some 250 Israelis in the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks and has been using those hostages to secure the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners from Israel as part of the ceasefire deal.
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US support for an independent Palestinian state in question
It has long been the position of the U.S. to support the creation of an independent Palestinian state, and Trump in his first term proposed a two-state solution that offered full control of Jerusalem to Israel, including holy sites that are claimed by both sides, as a condition.
Asked Tuesday if he still supports that plan, Trump said “a lot of plans change with time and a lot of death has occurred since I left and now came back.”
But a senior Trump administration official declined to say Tuesday ahead of Netanyahu's visit whether the U.S. supports a two-state solution. The official said that Trump is focused on removing Hamas from power and securing the release of hostages.
Netanyahu has long opposed Palestinian statehood, and it wasn't immediately clear on Tuesday how Trump's Gaza proposal factored into the discussion.
Does the proposal jibe with Trump's 'America first' policy? One Democratic senator says it's worth considering
Mike Doran, the senior director for Near East and North African affairs at the National Security Council under former President George W. Bush, said he’d never heard anyone talk about the U.S. taking over Gaza before.
“It was the last thing that I expected from Donald Trump,” Doran said. “He represents, in many ways, a desire to get the United States less involved in places like the Middle East.”
Doran said leaders in the region are not going to want to come anywhere near the proposal “because they don't want to have to sell it, and they don't want to have to publicly support it.”
“But the vision that the president is presenting represents an end to all these Gaza conflicts,” Doran, a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute, said. “And as he said, people in the region crave stability, and this would bring stability.”
Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel in the Obama administration Daniel Shapiro threw cold water on Trump’s proposal, however. “It’s awfully hard to imagine Arab allies of the United States accepting the total removal of Palestinians from Gaza. It’s also an enormous undertaking for the United States to own and develop Gaza as the president suggested, with huge costs in both dollars and likely in U.S. troops."
Shapiro, who was also senior director for the Middle East and North Africa on the National Security Council at the White House, added: “For both of those reasons, it would be very surprising if this came to pass.”
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., a vocal supporter of Israel, said the Trump proposal may be worth considering.
"It's a provocative part of the conversation, but it's part of the conversation, and that's where we are," he said.
Palestinians, he said, "allowed 10/7 to occur, and now Gaza has to be rebuilt. Where are the people going to live? Where are they going to go? So it's part of a conversation with where they're at right now."
Contributing: Sudiksha Kochi
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump, in a major policy shift, says the US should take over Gaza