{"id":125439,"date":"2025-02-06T02:57:54","date_gmt":"2025-02-06T02:57:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trump-proposes-u-s-takeover-of-gaza-and-says-palestinians-should-move-the-new-york-times\/"},"modified":"2025-02-06T02:57:54","modified_gmt":"2025-02-06T02:57:54","slug":"trump-proposes-u-s-takeover-of-gaza-and-says-palestinians-should-move-the-new-york-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trump-proposes-u-s-takeover-of-gaza-and-says-palestinians-should-move-the-new-york-times\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Proposes U.S. Takeover of Gaza and Says Palestinians Should Move – The New York Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trump<\/span> Administration<\/span><\/span><\/span>
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The president met with the Israeli prime minister at the White House, meeting in person with another world leader for the first time since returning to power.
By <\/span>Michael D. Shear<\/a>Peter Baker<\/a> and Isabel Kershner<\/a>
Peter Baker and Michael D. Shear reported from Washington, and Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem.
President Trump declared on Tuesday that the United States should seize control of Gaza and permanently displace the entire Palestinian population of the devastated seaside enclave, one of the most brazen ideas that any American leader has advanced in years.
Hosting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel at the White House, Mr. Trump said that all two million Palestinians from Gaza should be moved to countries like Egypt and Jordan because of the devastation wrought by Israel\u2019s campaign against Hamas after the terrorist attack of Oct. 7, 2023.
\u201cThe U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too,\u201d Mr. Trump said at a news conference Tuesday evening. \u201cWe\u2019ll own it and be responsible\u201d for disposing of unexploded munitions and rebuilding Gaza into a mecca for jobs and tourism. Sounding like the real estate developer he once was, Mr. Trump vowed to turn it into \u201cthe Riviera of the Middle East.\u201d
While the president framed the matter as a humanitarian imperative and an economic development opportunity, he effectively reopened a geopolitical Pandora\u2019s box with far-reaching implications for the Middle East. Control over Gaza has been one of the major flash points of the Arab-Israeli conflict for decades, and the idea of relocating its Palestinian residents recalls an era when great Western powers redrew the maps of the region and moved around populations without regard to local autonomy.
The notion of the United States taking over territory in the Middle East would be a dramatic reversal for Mr. Trump, who first ran for office in 2016 vowing to extract America from the region after the Iraq war and decried the nation-building of his predecessors. In unveiling the plan, Mr. Trump did not cite any legal authority giving him the right to take over the territory, nor did he address the fact that forcible removal of a population violates international law and decades of American foreign policy consensus in both parties.
He made the proposal even as the United States was seeking to secure the Israel-Hamas cease-fire\u2019s second phase, which is designed to free the remaining hostages in Gaza and bring a permanent end to the fighting. Negotiators had described their task as exceptionally difficult even before Mr. Trump announced his idea of ousting Palestinians from their homes.
Hamas, which has ruled in Gaza for most of the past two decades and is re-establishing control<\/a> there now, immediately rejected mass relocation on Tuesday, and Egypt and Jordan have rejected the idea of taking in a large influx of Palestinians<\/a>, given the fraught history, burden and destabilizing potential.
Sami Abu Zuhri, a senior Hamas official, said that Mr. Trump\u2019s proposed relocation was \u201ca recipe for creating chaos and tension in the region.\u201d
\u201cOur people in Gaza will not allow for these plans to come to pass,\u201d he said in a statement distributed by Hamas. \u201cWhat is needed is the end of the occupation and the aggression against our people, not expelling them from their land.\u201d
Mr. Trump waved aside the opposition from Arab countries like Egypt and Jordan, suggesting that his powers of persuasion would convince them.
\u201cThey say they\u2019re not going to accept,\u201d Mr. Trump said during an earlier meeting with Mr. Netanyahu in the Oval Office. \u201cI say they will.\u201d
Mr. Netanyahu, sitting at Mr. Trump\u2019s side, smiled with satisfaction as the president first outlined his ideas. Later, during the joint news conference, the Israeli prime minister heaped praise on Mr. Trump.
\u201cYou cut to the chase,\u201d Mr. Netanyahu told Mr. Trump. \u201cYou see things others refuse to see. You say things others refuse to say, and after the jaws dropped, people scratch their heads and they say, \u2018you know, he\u2019s right.\u2019\u201d
\u201cThis is the kind of thinking that will reshape the Middle East and bring peace,\u201d he added.
In his remarks, Mr. Trump insisted that Palestinians would quickly warm to his idea.
\u201cI don\u2019t think people should be going back to Gaza,\u201d Mr. Trump said. \u201cI heard that Gaza has been very unlucky for them. They live like hell. They live like they\u2019re living in hell. Gaza is not a place for people to be living, and the only reason they want to go back, and I believe this strongly, is because they have no alternative.\u201d
He suggested that nations in the region could finance the resettlement of Gazans to new places \u2014 perhaps \u201ca good, fresh, beautiful piece of land\u201d \u2014 that would provide better living conditions, either as a single territory or as many as a dozen. \u201cIt would be my hope that we could do something really nice, really good, where they wouldn\u2019t want to return,\u201d he said without offering details of what that would entail.
Asked how many Palestinians he had in mind, he said, \u201call of them,\u201d adding, \u201cI would think that they would be thrilled.\u201d Pressed repeatedly on whether he would force them to go even if they did not want to, Mr. Trump said, \u201cI don\u2019t think they\u2019re going to tell me no.\u201d
Gaza has a long and tortured history of conflict and crisis. Many Gazans are descendants of Palestinians who were forced out of their homes during the 1948 war after Israel\u2019s independence, an event known around the Arab world as the Nakba, or catastrophe. Now Mr. Trump is suggesting that they be displaced again, even though the Geneva Conventions \u2014 international agreements that the United States and Israel both ratified \u2014 bar forcible relocation of populations.
Egypt captured Gaza during the 1948 war and controlled it until Israel seized it, along with other Palestinian territory, in a 1967 war against a coalition of Arab nations seeking to destroy the Jewish state. Palestinians in Gaza waged violent resistance for years afterward, and Israel eventually withdrew from Gaza in 2005.
But within two years, Hamas, an avowed enemy of Israel that the United States and other nations have designated a terrorist group, took control of the enclave and used it as a base for war against Israel.
For years, Israel blockaded Gaza while Hamas fired rockets and staged terrorist attacks, culminating in the October 2023 operation that killed 1,200 people and led to the capture of 250 more. Israel retaliated with an unrelenting military operation that killed more than 47,000 people, according to Gazan health officials, whose count does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
In the weeks since a cease-fire that President Joseph R. Biden Jr.\u2019s administration negotiated and that Mr. Trump pushed came into effect, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who were repeatedly displaced throughout the war have returned to their homes in Gaza to find them and their communities demolished. Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump\u2019s Middle East envoy, visited Gaza last week and said it would take 10 to 15 years to reconstruct.
\u201cIf you had damage that was one-hundredth of what I saw in Gaza, nobody would be allowed to go back to their homes,\u201d Mr. Witkoff told reporters on Tuesday. \u201cThat\u2019s how dangerous it is. There\u2019s 30,000 unexploded munitions. It is buildings that could tip over at any moment. There\u2019s no utilities.\u201d
Picking up on the theme later in the day, Mr. Trump said it was not realistic to have Palestinians return to Gaza. \u201cThey have no alternative right now\u201d but to leave, Mr. Trump told reporters before Mr. Netanyahu\u2019s arrival.
\u201cI mean, they\u2019re there because they have no alternative,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat do they have? It is a big pile of rubble right now.\u201d He added: \u201cI don\u2019t know how they could want to stay. It\u2019s a demolition site. It\u2019s a pure demolition site.\u201d
Mr. Trump suggested the resettlement of Palestinians would be akin to the New York real estate projects he built his career on. \u201cIf 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\u2019s for sure,\u201d he said. \u201cI think that would be a lot better than going back to Gaza.\u201d
\u201cI do see a long-term ownership position\u201d for the United States, Mr. Trump said, adding that \u201ceverybody I\u2019ve spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land, developing and creating thousands of jobs with something that will be magnificent.\u201d
Mr. Trump\u2019s summit with Mr. Netanyahu was his first in-person meeting with another world leader since his return to power two weeks ago. It was part of a multiday visit to Washington by Mr. Netanyahu that was meant to demonstrate the close ties between the two leaders.
Mr. Trump and Mr. Netanyahu forged a close partnership during the president\u2019s first term but fell out toward its end over a number of issues, including the Israeli leader\u2019s willingness to congratulate Mr. Biden on his victory in the 2020 election, which Mr. Trump insists he won. Mr. Trump and Mr. Netanyahu have since sought to smooth over their rift.
But Mr. Netanyahu went into his meeting at odds with Mr. Trump on several important issues, according to analysts, likely including how to confront Iran\u2019s nuclear ambitions and how quickly to end the war in Gaza.
The Trump administration has made clear that it wants to see all of the hostages held by Hamas returned and then move on to a grand bargain involving Saudi Arabia that formalizes relations with Israel.
Saudi Arabia reiterated support<\/a> for an independent Palestinian state on Tuesday and said forging ties with Israel would depend on the creation of such a state.
Advisers to Mr. Trump told reporters on Tuesday morning that the president and Mr. Netanyahu were united behind the idea that Hamas should not be allowed to remain in power.
With Mr. Netanyahu\u2019s right-wing government in jeopardy<\/a> if the war ends with Hamas still in control in Gaza, and with no other plan for the area in place, analysts expect the Israeli prime minister to try to delay moving toward a permanent cease-fire.
\u201cNetanyahu made this salami deal,\u201d said Shira Efron, the senior director of policy research at the Israel Policy Forum, a New York-based research group, referring to the three-phased agreement with Hamas. \u201cHe\u2019s always playing for time and kicking the can down the road.\u201d
Adding to the anxiety in the region were reports on Monday<\/a> that U.S. intelligence officials believe Iran is seeking to build a cruder atomic weapon that could be developed quickly if the leadership in Tehran decided to do so.
It remains unclear whether that decision has been made, and Iran\u2019s new president has indicated that he would like to begin a negotiation with Mr. Trump\u2019s administration even as the country\u2019s nuclear scientists push ahead with their efforts.
Mr. Trump on Tuesday signed an order directing a return to the policy of \u201cmaximum pressure\u201d on Iran through sanctions, but avoided hostile language and refused to say whether he would support an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, an indication of his interest in reaching an agreement. \u201cThis is one I\u2019m torn about,\u201d he said as he signed the order. \u201cHopefully, we\u2019re not going to have to use it very much.\u201d
Edward Wong contributed reporting from Washington, and Adam Rasgon from Jerusalem. Ephrat Livni contributed research.
Michael D. Shear is a White House correspondent for The Times, covering President Biden and his administration. He has reported on politics for more than 30 years. More about Michael D. Shear<\/a><\/span>
Peter Baker is the chief White House correspondent for The Times. He is covering his sixth  presidency and sometimes writes analytical pieces that place presidents and their administrations in a larger context and historical framework. More about Peter Baker<\/a><\/span>
Isabel Kershner, a Times correspondent in Jerusalem, has been reporting on Israeli and Palestinian affairs since 1990. More about Isabel Kershner<\/a><\/span>
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