US President Donald Trump said that Palestinians would have no right to return to Gaza under his US takeover plan.
In an interview that aired on Monday evening, he described the rebuilding of Gaza as a “real estate development for the future.”
“I would own it” and that there could be as many as six different sites for Palestinians to live outside Gaza under the plan, which the Arab world and others in the international community have rejected,” he said.
“No, they wouldn’t, because they’re going to have much better housing,” Trump said when he was asked if the Palestinians would have the right to return to the enclave, most of which has been reduced to rubble by Israel’s military since October 2023.
“In other words, I’m talking about building a permanent place for them because if they have to return now, it’ll be years before you could ever—it’s not habitable,” he added.
Trump made these absurd claims during a recent joint press conference with visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, invoking fierce backlash from the international and regional Arab nations.
“Could be five, six, could be two. But we’ll build safe communities, a little bit away from where they are, where all of this danger is,” added Trump.
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Trump said, “In the meantime, I would own this. Think of it as a real estate development for the future. It would be a beautiful piece of land. No big money spent.”
Trump stunned the world when he announced out of the blue last week that the United States would “take over the Gaza Strip,” remove rubble and unexploded bombs and turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
The reaction from much of the rest of the world has been one of outrage, with Egypt, Jordan, other Arab nations, and the Palestinians all rejecting it out of hand.
The criticism was not limited to the Arab world, with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Sunday labelling the plan “a scandal,” adding that the forced relocation of Palestinians would be “unacceptable and against international law.”
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