Trump: US will ‘take over’ Gaza, ‘own’ it, develop it, then make it an ‘international’ area

WASHINGTON — In comments shocking the entire press corps, US President Donald Trump says he wants the US to “take over” Gaza and “own” the Strip in order to rebuild the coastal enclave after it was leveled in the past 15 months of war.

“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 bombs and other weapons on the site… and get rid of the destroyed buildings, level it out [and] create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area,” Trump says during a press conference alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

He doesn’t specify who those jobs will be for, given that he is also calling for all Palestinians to be removed from Gaza.

“I don’t want to be cute. I don’t want to be a wise guy,” he says, and then refers to Gaza as potentially “the Riviera of the Middle East. This could be something that could be so magnificent.”

He says he hopes the current Gaza ceasefire will yield “a larger and more ending peace that will end the bloodshed and killing once and for all.”

Trump later clarifies that the “world’s people” will be the ones to live in Gaza once the US finishes rebuilding it. He says the Palestinians can be among them, adding that it will be an “international” area.

He reiterates his belief that Palestinians should be removed from the “hell hole” of Gaza, but this time makes the statement while reading from prepared remarks, further indicating that this has become the administration’s official policy and not an off-the-cuff idea.

Gaza “should not go through a process of rebuilding and occupation by the same people,” Trump says.

Trump says Gaza’s population of roughly 1.8 million people should be transferred to countries “of interest with humanitarian hearts.”

“There are many of them that want to do this,” Trump claims.

Trump says one or multiple countries could take in Palestinians from Gaza.

Trump says the rebuilding of Gaza could be “paid for by neighboring countries a great wealth.” Gazans could go to up to 12 sites elsewhere — where “they won’t be shot and killed.” Today, “it’s a demolition site.”

In his prepared remarks, Trump also says he has ended the previous administration’s “de facto arms embargo” on Israel,” and that earlier today he took the US out of the “antisemitic UN Human Rights Council” and “ended all of the support” for the UN Palestine refugee agency, UNRWA, “which funneled money to Hamas and which was very disloyal to humanity.”

He says he has reinstituted the “maximum pressure” policy on Iran and will “enforce the most aggressive possible sanctions,” drive Iranian exports to zero and diminish the regime’s capacity to fund terror throughout the region and throughout the world.”