Trump wants Palestinians to be ‘permanently’ resettled outside of Gaza
Washington: US President Donald Trump has repeated his declaration that Gaza is uninhabitable and says 1.7 million Palestinians should be resettled in “beautiful” new towns in nearby Arab nations where they won’t “be worried about dying every day”.
He pushed the case during a bilateral meeting with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, arguing the 15-month war between Israel and Hamas that has destroyed much of the territory meant Gazans would no longer want to return or live there.
US President Donald Trump, left, greets Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister.Credit: Bloomberg
“Gaza is a demolition site … there’s hardly a building standing,” Trump said. “You can’t live in Gaza right now, and I think we need another location. Gaza has been very unlucky for them. They live like they’re living in hell.”
It was not just the 15 months of brutal warfare that followed Hamas’ October 7 attacks, Trump suggested, but decades of violence in the Arab-Israeli conflict that rendered Gaza unfeasible for habitation.
“You look over the decades, it’s all death in Gaza. This has been happening for years. If we can get a beautiful area to resettle people permanently in nice homes where they can be happy and not be shot, not be killed, not be knifed to death like what’s happening now in Gaza… The whole thing is a mess.”
US President Donald Trump, right, and Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, during a bilateral meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC.Credit: Bloomberg
Trump denied Gazans would want to go back to their homeland, even though many have already returned over the past two weeks following the ceasefire, despite the widespread destruction of homes and infrastructure.
“The only reason they want to go back, and I believe this strongly, is because they had no alternative. If they had an alternative, they’d much rather not go back to Gaza and live in a beautiful alternative that’s safe,” he said.
The president previously floated the idea of resettling Palestinians in Egypt and Jordan, and made the case to leaders of both countries. But they – along with Arab neighbours – rejected the proposal, saying they opposed force displacement of Palestinians from their homeland and supported a two-state solution.
