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U.S. President Donald Trump (R) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a press conference at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 4, 2025. /VCG
U.S. President Donald Trump said Tuesday 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," he said. "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 place could become a home to "the world's people," he added.
The president said that he plans to visit Israel and possibly make a trip to Gaza.
The announcement followed Trump's proposal earlier on Tuesday for the permanent resettlement of Palestinians from Gaza to neighboring countries, calling the enclave – where the first phase of a Israel-Hamas ceasefire is in effect – a "demolition site."
Trump touted the narrow strip, where Israel's military assault in response to Hamas' cross-border attack on October 7, 2023 has leveled large swaths, as having the potential to be "the Riviera of the Middle East."
Netanyahu, whose military had engaged in more than a year of fierce fighting with Hamas militants in Gaza, said Trump was "thinking outside the box with fresh ideas" and was "showing willingness to puncture conventional thinking."
Trump greets Netanyahu as he arrives at the White House, February 4, 2025. /VCG
Trump said Washington will ask other neighboring countries to take in Palestinians displaced from Gaza. Since January 25, he has repeatedly asked Egypt and Jordan to do so. They and other Arab states have rejected his proposal.
"Instead, we should go to other countries of interest with humanitarian hearts, and there are many of them that want to do this and build various domains that will ultimately be occupied by the 1.8 million Palestinians living in Gaza, ending the death and destruction and frankly, bad luck. This could be paid for by neighboring countries of great wealth," Trump said on Tuesday.
Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, the Palestinian Authority and the Arab League released a joint statement rejecting any plans to move Palestinians out of their territories in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
The Arab statement warned that such plans "threaten the region's stability, risk expanding the conflict, and undermine prospects for peace and coexistence among its peoples."
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi rejected Trump's suggestion in a news conference last week, saying that the transfer of Palestinians "can't ever be tolerated or allowed."
"The solution to this issue is the two-state solution. It is the establishment of a Palestinian state," he said.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi also said that Jordan's rejection to Trump's idea is "firm and unwavering."
(With input from agencies)