President Donald Trump has said the United States will occupy the war-torn Gaza, as he addressed reporters at the White House after talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the country's genocidal war in Gaza.
"The US will take over the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it, too. We'll own it. And be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on this site," Trump said in his controversial remarks on Tuesday.
He claimed "everybody I've spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land."
He said "the same people", referring to resistance group Hamas, should not be in charge of rebuilding and occupying the land.
"We’ll do what is necessary," Trump said about the possibility of deploying troops to Gaza. "If it’s necessary, we’ll do that." He said people from around the world would live in Gaza after its redevelopment.
Trump added the US would level destroyed buildings and "create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area."
"I love Israel. I will visit there and I'll visit Gaza and I'll visit Saudi Arabia and I'll visit other places all over the Middle East," Trump told reporters, without committing to any timetable.
The comments came after Trump earlier suggested that uprooted Palestinians in Gaza be "permanently" resettled outside the war-torn territory.
Netanyahu, meanwhile, said Trump's plan could "change history."
He said "it's worth paying attention to this" idea and added that it's "something that could change history."
Trump says Egypt, Jordan will comply
Trump's most provocative comments to date for ethnic cleansing and occupation of Gaza comes amid growing uncertainty that the temporary ceasefire and hostage agreement struck last month between Israel and Hamas can reach an even more delicate second stage.
Egypt, Jordan and other US allies in the Mideast have cautioned Trump that uprooting Gaza's more than 2.3 million Palestinians would amount to ethnic cleansing, threaten Mideast stability, risk expanding the conflict and undermine a decades-long push by the US and allies for a two-state solution.
Still, Trump insists the Palestinians "have no alternative" but to leave the "big pile of rubble” that is Gaza.
He spoke out as his top aides stressed that a three-to-five-year timeline for reconstruction of the war-torn territory, as laid out in a temporary truce agreement, is not viable.
Last week, both Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el Sissi and Jordanian King Abdullah II dismissed Trump's calls to resettle Palestinians of Gaza.
Still, Trump, with Netanyahu by his side, said he believes Egypt and Jordan—as well as other countries which he did not name—will ultimately agree to take in Palestinians.
"You look over the decades, it's all death in Gaza," Trump said. "This has been happening for years. It’s all death. If we can get a beautiful area to resettle people, permanently, in nice homes where they can be happy and not be shot and not be killed and not be knifed to death like what’s happening in Gaza."
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, the Palestinian Authority and the Arab League have joined Egypt and Jordan in rejecting plans to move Palestinians out of their territories in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
➤Click here to follow our WhatsApp channel for more stories.
