Trump Wants The U.S. To Take Over Gaza Strip

PM Benjamin Netanyahu (L) and U.S. President Donald Trump, Feb. 4, 2025. X/ @stanleybotha

February 5, 2025 Hour: 8:02 am

Palestinian President Abbas rejected his proposal to expel Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to other countries.

On Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump said that the United States will take ownership of the Gaza Strip and redevelop it after Palestinians are relocated elsewhere.

Trump made the remarks in a joint press conference with visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, without providing details about how to conduct a resettlement procedure.

“The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too. We’re going to develop it, create thousands and thousands of jobs, and it’ll be something that the entire Middle East can be very proud of,” the U.S. president said.

The place could become a home to “the world’s people,” Trump added, mentioning that he plans to visit Israel and possibly make a trip to Gaza.

Already twice that Trump has said there are now "1.7 to 1.8m people" in Gaza, which means it's probably a number he's been briefed on.

Before the war the population was 2.1-2.3m.

As a reminder, almost no-one could leave Gaza during the war.

Do the math.pic.twitter.com/Kl6IZPHQVL
— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) February 5, 2025

Palestinian National Authority (PNA) President Mahmoud Abbas immediately rejected Trump’s proposal to expel Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to other countries, and recalled that the enclave is an integral part of the Palestinian State.

“We will not allow the rights of our people, for which we have been fighting for decades and for which we have made great sacrifices, to be violated,” Abbas said, stressing that the rights of the Palestinians are not negotiable, and that no one can make decisions about the future of the Palestinians but themselves.

The PNA president, who also chairs the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), also thanked Saudi Arabia for rejecting the forced expulsion of the Gazans, and called on the United Nations to take urgent measures to protect international resolutions, which recognize the right of return of Palestinians displaced by Israel.

“We were born here, we live here, and we will die here,” said Hussein al-Sheikh, the PLO secretary, recalling that the two-state solution was the only guarantee of peace in the Middle East.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, which rules the Gaza strip, called Trump’s proposal “racist” and said that Gazans “will remain attached to their land and will not accept this plan, no matter the cost.”

Trump, who made his fortune in real estate deals, did not rule out deploying U.S. troops to support “the reconstruction” of Gaza and said the US would do “whatever it takes” to complete the project.