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Wednesday, February 05, 2025

Trump Says U.S. Should Control Gaza Strip: Live Reaction and Updates - The New York Times

In Gaza and Jerusalem, People React to Trump’s Proposal for Palestinians

Live Updates: Allies, Foes and Palestinians Reject Trump’s Gaza Takeover Talk

"Middle East partners, world leaders and Gazans swiftly opposed President Trump’s idea to force Palestinians out of the territory and take it over. Experts said the plan would violate international law.

A Palestinian man and his wife gathering belongings in front of their destroyed house in Jabalia, northern Gaza, on Wednesday.Saher Alghorra for The New York Times

Pinned

President Trump’s brazen proposal to move all Palestinians out of Gaza and make it a U.S. territory met with immediate opposition on Wednesday from key American partners and officials around the world, with many expressing support for a Palestinian state as experts called it a breach of international law.

The proposal also threatens a U.S. ambition for normalized diplomatic relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. In a statement issued before 4 a.m. local time, Saudi Arabiaexpressed its “unequivocal rejection” of attempts to displace Palestinians and reiterated that it would not establish diplomatic ties with Israel in the absence of an independent Palestinian state.

Ephrat Livni
Feb. 5, 2025, 11:57 a.m. ET

Responding to a question about Trump’s proposal to take over Gaza at a briefing on Wednesday morning, House Speaker Mike Johnson lauded the president for “taking bold, decisive action to try to ensure the peace” in the Middle East. Ignoring widespread condemnation of the idea from around the world, Johnson said the president’s proposal, while it surprised many people, was widely “cheered” as a concept “because that area is so dangerous.”

Aaron Boxerman
Feb. 5, 2025, 11:56 a.m. ET

King Abdullah II, the Jordanian monarch, hosted Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority’s president, in Amman for a meeting in the wake of Trump’s comments about a postwar Gaza and removing its Palestinian residents en masse. During the meeting, King Abdullah discussed his rejection of any attempt to displace Palestinians and annex their land, according to the Jordanian royal court.

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Patients from a hospital in Gaza City departing for Egypt to receive treatment last week. Bashar Taleb/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

For decades, the question of whether and how Palestinians might build a state in their homeland has been at the center of Middle East politics — not only for the Palestinians themselves, but also for Arabs around the region, many of whom regard the Palestinian cause almost as their own. Forcing Palestinians out of their remaining territory, Arabs say, would doom that shared desire for Palestinian statehood and destabilize the entire region in the process.

So it was a nightmare for the Palestinians’ closest Arab neighbors, Egypt and Jordan, and a dream come true for Israel’s far-right-dominated government, when President Trump proposed moving everyone out of the Gaza Strip and onto Egyptian and Jordanian soil, an idea he repeated in a White House news conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Tuesday.

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A day after President Trump proposed that the United States take over Gaza, many Palestinians said they were committed to staying in the enclave despite the widespread devastation. In Jerusalem, some residents reacted with surprise and enthusiasm to the proposal.

I am delighted and excited. And have hope that what he says is true. If America takes over Aza (Gaza), that will really, really be something spectacular, and the Middle East will calm down. I think the Middle East will calm down. I think we’ll be able to have stuff with Saudi Arabia. Most important thing to all of us is to get the hostages back. I think that’s an ideal, because Aza is not helping anybody. The people from Aza, they’re suffering. We’re suffering and the world is suffering. And I think he’s got the right idea. How to implement it is a different story. But if anybody can do it, it’ll be Trump.

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A day after President Trump proposed that the United States take over Gaza, many Palestinians said they were committed to staying in the enclave despite the widespread devastation. In Jerusalem, some residents reacted with surprise and enthusiasm to the proposal.Haitham Imad/EPA, via Shutterstock

Palestinians in Gaza expressed a mixture of condemnation and confusion on Wednesday over President Trump’s declaration that the United States should seize control of the devastated coastal territory and forcibly displace its entire population.

A number of Gazans said they found Mr. Trump’s comments reprehensible, noting they were in harmony with plans presented by far-right members of Israel's governing coalition. But while some rejected leaving Gaza under any circumstances, others said conditions were so unlivable after 15 months of Israeli bombardment that they would consider relocating.

Aaron Boxerman
Feb. 5, 2025, 8:31 a.m. ET

President Trump said on social media that he hoped to reach a “Verified Nuclear Peace Agreement” with Iran in order to prevent it from building a nuclear weapon. He said in a post on Truth Social that any reports that the United States is “going to blow Iran into smithereens” in conjunction with Israel were “GREATLY EXAGGERATED.” After meeting Trump at the White House yesterday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said he and Trump saw “eye to eye on Iran,” without offering extensive details.

Aaron Boxerman
Feb. 5, 2025, 8:33 a.m. ET

Israel and Iran view one another as archenemies. The two have exchanged fire multiple times over the past year amid the war in Gaza, and Israel views Tehran’s nuclear program as an existential threat. Since Trump’s election, there has been speculation over whether the president might sign off on U.S. support for an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, an option long debated by Israeli policymakers.

Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s Mideast envoy, said he was set to meet the Qatari prime minister in Florida on Thursday for negotiations.Jim Watson/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

President Trump announced his bombastic proposals for the future of Gaza even as Israel and Hamas were preparing to start a new round of talks this week to maintain the current cease-fire.

Israel and Hamas committed to at least a 42-day cease-fire during which they would negotiate a permanent truce. Those talks were set to begin this week, 16 days after the agreement went into effect in late January.

Palestinians making tea near the rubble of their destroyed house in Jabaliya in northern Gaza last week.Osama Al-Arabid/Reuters

President Trump’s proposal for the United States to take over Gaza, transfer its population to Egypt and Jordan and redevelop it into the “Riviera of the Middle East” would unquestionably be a severe violation of international law, experts say.

Forced deportation or transfer of a civilian population is a violation of international humanitarian law, a war crime and a crime against humanity. The prohibition against forced deportations of civilians has been a part of the law of war since the Lieber Code, a set of rules on the conduct of hostilities, was promulgated by Union forces during the U.S. Civil War. It is prohibited by multiple provisions of the Geneva Conventions, and the Nuremberg Tribunal after World War II defined it as a war crime.

News Analysis

Displaced Palestinians returning to the northern Gaza Strip on Sunday.Saher Alghorra for The New York Times

President Trump’s plan to place Gaza under American occupation and transfer its two million Palestinian residents has delighted the Israeli right, horrified Palestinians, shocked America’s Arab allies and confounded regional analysts who saw it as unworkable.

For some experts, the idea felt so unlikely — would Mr. Trump really risk American troops in another intractable battle against militant Islamists in the Middle East? — that they wondered if it was simply the opening bid in a new round of negotiations over Gaza’s future.

Allies and adversaries of the United States are widely opposed to President Trump’s proposal to take over the Gaza Strip.Tierney L. Cross for The New York Times

He has cast himself as a “uniter,” and indeed on Wednesday, President Trump brought together allies and adversaries around the world in opposition to his proposal to take over the Gaza Strip and eject its two million Palestinian residents to neighboring countries.

Not only did Mr. Trump’s suggestion that the war-torn enclave could become a “Riviera of the Middle East” alarm leaders and politicians from China to Canada, it also threatened a yearslong U.S. ambition to broker normalized diplomatic relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Aaron Boxerman
Feb. 5, 2025, 6:37 a.m. ET

Gideon Saar, Israel’s foreign minister, praised Trump for his “out of the box ideas” on Gaza, saying that the enclave “in its current form has no future.” Saar appeared to defend Trump’s contentious proposal that Palestinians leave Gaza en masse. “As long as people emigrate of their own free will — anywhere in the world — and there is a country willing to accept them, can anyone say that’s immoral or inhumane?” he said in Israel’s Parliament.

Safak Timur
Feb. 5, 2025, 6:13 a.m. ET

Turkey’s foreign minister has said that the idea of moving all Palestinians out of Gaza is unacceptable. “It is even wrong to open that to discussion,” Hakan Fidan, the minister, said in a televised interview. Turkey is against any initiative that would exclude the Gazan people, he said. 

Vivian Yee
Feb. 5, 2025, 5:36 a.m. ET

Egypt’s foreign minister spoke to the prime minister and foreign minister of the Palestinian Authority on Wednesday about removing debris from Gaza, expediting humanitarian aid and starting recovery programs “without the Palestinians leaving,” according to a statement from Egypt’s foreign ministry.

Aaron Boxerman
Feb. 5, 2025, 4:40 a.m. ET

Far-right Israeli politicians continue to celebrate Trump’s remarks as a vindication of their ideology. Bezalel Smotrich, the hardline finance minister, called the president’s proposal “the true answer to Oct. 7,” a reference to the Hamas-led attack on Israel in 2023 that ignited the war in Gaza.

Aaron Boxerman
Feb. 5, 2025, 4:40 a.m. ET

“Those who committed the most horrific massacre on our territory will lose their own territory forever,” Smotrich said.

Aaron Boxerman
Feb. 5, 2025, 3:00 a.m. ET

The internationally backed Palestinian Authority appeared to reject President Trump’s proposal for Gazans to leave the enclave, without mentioning him by name. The Palestinian leadership “rejects all calls for expelling the Palestinian people from its homeland,” said Hussein al-Sheikh, a senior advisor to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president. 

Aaron Boxerman
Feb. 5, 2025, 3:00 a.m. ET

The Palestinian Authority has sought to rehabilitate its once-adversarial relationship with Trump since he returned to office. His latest remarks could pose a serious challenge to that rapprochement.

Aaron Boxerman
Feb. 5, 2025, 2:26 a.m. ET

In Israel, politicians began to consider President Trump’s remarks. Itamar Ben-Gvir, until recently the country’s hard-line national security minister, said Trump’s plan to move Gazans en masse echoed his own idea of “encouraging” Palestinians to emigrate.

Aaron Boxerman
Feb. 5, 2025, 2:26 a.m. ET

“When I said over and over again during the war that this was the solution to Gaza, they mocked me,”Ben-Gvir said. “Now it’s clear to all: This is the only solution.”

Aaron Boxerman
Feb. 5, 2025, 2:26 a.m. ET

Among the center-right opposition to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the response to President Trump’s remarks was more muted.

Aaron Boxerman
Feb. 5, 2025, 2:26 a.m. ET

Benny Gantz, a former member of Netanyahu’s emergency war cabinet, congratulated Trump for “creative, original and interesting thinking” without endorsing his proposals. Yair Lapid, the leader of Israel’s parliamentary opposition, told an Israeli radio station, “One needs to see details before commenting on plans.” Both men praised Trump for what they called his support for Israel.

Ismaeel Naar
Feb. 5, 2025, 1:47 a.m. ET

President Trump’s statements about taking control of Gaza reflect confusion and deep ignorance about the Palestinian territories and the region, Izzat al-Rishq, a Hamas official, said in a statement.

Any solution must be based on ending Israel’s occupation, Mr. al-Rishq said, not “on the mentality of a real estate trader.”

President Trump and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia, on a billboard in Ramat Gan, Israel, on Tuesday.Jack Guez/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Saudi Arabia reaffirmed its support for an independent Palestinian state on Tuesday and said establishing diplomatic ties with Israel would depend on the creation of such a state, hours after President Trump proposed permanently moving all Palestinians out of Gaza and making it a U.S. territory.

The Foreign Ministry’s statement early Wednesday local time, which said that Saudi support for a Palestinian state was “firm and unwavering,” contradicted Mr. Trump. While hosting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel at the White House on Tuesday, the president had said that Saudi Arabia was not insisting on a Palestinian state.

Left unexplained by President Trump on Tuesday was how a U.S. takeover of Gaza would be enacted, and how two million people would be moved to other countries against their will.Eric Lee/The New York Times

Follow reactions to President Trump’s Gaza proposal.

President Trump said Tuesday that the United States should take over Gaza and forcibly relocate two million Palestinians to other countries, describing his plan as a humanitarian effort to provide a “beautiful” new home for people displaced by a devastating war.

A Palestinian looking at the rubble of buildings in Rafah, southern Gaza, on Tuesday.Hatem Khaled/Reuters

President Trump’s declaration on Tuesday evening that the United States could “take over” the Gaza Strip and that its Palestinian population could be permanently displaced was immediately criticized in the Middle East and beyond.

At a joint White House news conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, Mr. Trump said, “The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it, too.” He said the enclave, which has been devastated by more than 15 months of war between Israel and Hamas, could be redeveloped and turned into “the Riviera of the Middle East.”

A settler outpost in the northern West Bank in July. Settlements in the territory are widely considered to be illegal under international law.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times

Donald J. Trump’s return to power as president has bolstered right-wing lawmakers in Israel and the United States who support Israeli annexation of the West Bank, an occupied territory long seen by Palestinians and the international community as part of an eventual Palestinian state.

On Friday, Republican lawmakers in the House and Senate introduced bills that would bar the use of the term “West Bank” in United States government documents and materials, replacing the phrase with “Judea and Samaria,” the biblical names for the region that are widely used in Israel and the administrative name used by the state to describe the area."

Trump Says U.S. Should Control Gaza Strip: Live Reaction and Updates - The New York Times

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