WASHINGTON/CAIRO (Reuters) -President Donald Trump’s top aides staunchly defended his push to transfer Palestinians out of Gaza and have the U.S. take over the war-ruined enclave, but they also backed away from elements of his proposal in the face of international condemnation.
A longtime New York property developer, Trump drew rebukes on Wednesday from world powers Russia, China and Germany, which said it would foster “new suffering and new hatred.” Regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia rejected the proposal outright.
Barely two weeks in the job, Trump shattered decades of U.S. policy on Tuesday with a vaguely worded announcement saying he envisioned transforming Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East” where international communities could live in harmony after nearly 16 months of Israeli bombardment devastated the coastal enclave and killed more than 47,000 people, according to Palestinian tallies.
At a White House briefing on Wednesday, his press secretary Karoline Leavitt hailed his Gaza proposal as “historic” and “outside of the box” thinking but stressed that the president had not made a commitment to putting “boots on the ground” in the Palestinian enclave. She declined, however, to rule out potential use of U.S. troops there.
At the same time, Leavitt walked back Trump’s earlier assertion that Gazans needed to be permanently resettled in neighboring countries, saying instead that they should be “temporarily relocated” for the rebuilding process.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio also said the idea was for Gazans to leave the territory for an “interim” period of reconstruction and debris-clearing.
It was unclear whether Trump would go ahead with his proposal or was simply taking an extreme position as a bargaining strategy, as he has done on other issues in the past.
Trump’s son-in-law and former aide, Jared Kushner, last year described Gaza as “valuable” waterfront property, and on Tuesday Trump made similar claims as he called for the permanent resettlement of more than 2 million Palestinians from there.
Some experts said the proposed actions could violate international law. Others described his ideas as unworkable. Human rights advocates said it would amount to ethnic cleansing.
“Everybody loves it,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office earlier on Wednesday, referring to his Gaza idea.
Trump’s pronouncements, however, appear to run counter to U.S. public opinion, which polls have shown is overwhelmingly opposed to new entanglements in conflict zones following lengthy military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Trump frequently asserted during the 2024 election campaign and since returning to office that he would end what he called “ridiculous” wars and prevent others from starting
On a trip to Guatemala, Rubio, apparently seeking to counter the wave of global criticism, insisted Trump’s proposal was not a “hostile move” but a generous one that expressed “the willingness of the United States to become responsible for the reconstruction of that area.”
In contrast, Leavitt said U.S. taxpayers would not foot the bill and that Trump would strike a deal with regional partners.
Trump offered no specifics as he announced his proposal while welcoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House on Tuesday. He said he and his team had been discussing the possibility with Jordan, Egypt and other regional countries.
‘TRUMP CAN GO TO HELL’
Netanyahu, who met on Wednesday with U.S. Vice President JD Vance, would not be drawn into discussing the proposal, other than to praise Trump for trying a new approach.
But Leavitt, who described it as “something the president has been socializing and thinking about for quite some time,” said Trump told Netanyahu in advance what he would announce on Tuesday.
Jordan’s King Abdullah said on Wednesday he rejected any moves to annex land and displace Palestinians. Egypt said it would back Gaza recovery plans, following a ceasefire that took effect on Jan. 19, without Palestinians leaving the territory.
In Gaza, Palestinians living among the wreckage of their former homes said they would never accept the idea.
“Trump can go to hell, with his ideas, with his money, and with his beliefs. We are going nowhere. We are not some of his assets,” said Samir Abu Basel, a father of five in Gaza City displaced from his house by the war.
Since taking office on Jan. 20, Trump has talked about a U.S. takeover of Greenland, warned of the possible seizure of the Panama Canal and declared that Canada should become the 51st U.S. state.
Some critics have said his expansionist rhetoric echoes old-style imperialism, suggesting it could encourage Russia in its war in Ukraine and give China justification for invading self-ruled Taiwan.
World leaders said they remained supportive of the two-state solution that has formed the basis of U.S. policy in the region for decades, which has held that Gaza would be part of a future Palestinian state that includes the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
U.S. national security adviser Mike Waltz on Wednesday played down any notion the U.S. was walking away from longstanding Middle East policy. “I certainly didn’t hear the president say it was the end of the two-state solution,” he told CBS News.
‘RIDICULOUS AND ABSURD’
An official from Palestinian militant group Hamas, which ruled the Gaza Strip before the war there that followed Hamas’ deadly October 7, 2023, cross-border attack on Israel, said Trump’s proposal was “ridiculous and absurd.”
“Any ideas of this kind are capable of igniting the region,” Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters, saying Hamas remains committed to the ceasefire accord with Israel and negotiating its next phase.
Trump’s proposal raises questions about whether Saudi Arabia would be willing to join a renewed U.S.-brokered push for a historic normalisation of relations with Israel.
Saudi Arabia, a pivotal U.S. ally in the Middle East, said it would not establish ties with Israel without the creation of a Palestinian state, contradicting Trump’s claim that Riyadh was not demanding a Palestinian homeland.
Trump would like Saudi Arabia to follow in the footsteps of the United Arab Emirates, a Middle East trade and business hub, and Bahrain, both of which signed the Abraham Accords in 2020 and normalised ties with Israel.
But on Wednesday, the kingdom’s foreign ministry said Saudi Arabia rejected any attempts to remove Palestinians from their land and said Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had affirmed this position in “a clear and explicit manner.”
Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right Israeli lawmaker and former minister for national security, said “encouraging” Gazans to emigrate was the only correct strategy at the end of the Gaza war and urged Netanyahu to adopt the policy “immediately.”
Michael Milshtein, a former intelligence officer and one of Israel’s leading specialists on Hamas, said Trump’s comments put Israel on a collision course with its Arab neighbours.
“Maybe Trump is trying to promote pressure on the Arab states (so) they will not create any obstacles if he tries to promote a normalisation between Saudi Arabia and Israel.”
Gaza residents said after war and bombs had failed to eject them from Gaza that Trump would not succeed in doing so.
As fighting raged in the Gaza war, Palestinians feared they would suffer another “Nakba,” or catastrophe, the time when hundreds of thousands were dispossessed of their homes in the war at the birth of the state of Israel in 1948.
Now they fear another round of displacement.
“We will not leave our areas,” said Um Tamer Jamal, a 65-year-old mother of six. “We have brought our kids up teaching them that they can’t leave their home and they can’t allow a second Nakba.”
During a U.N. committee meeting, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told Trump to avoid ethnic cleansing.
“In the search for solutions, we must not make the problem worse. It is vital to stay true to the bedrock of international law. It is essential to avoid any form of ethnic cleansing,” he said.
(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi; Additional reporting by Simon Lewis in Guatemala City, Colleen Howe, Gleb Stolyarov and Mark Trevelyan; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Howard Goller)
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