US President Donald Trump has restated a vision in which the US would take over Gaza, after officials in his administration appeared to contradict his earlier comments.
“The Gaza Strip would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting,” Trump said on Thursday. He reiterated that the idea would mean resettling Palestinians, and that no US soldiers would be needed.
Trump’s resettlement idea has prompted accusations that he is planning ethnic cleansing, and has drawn condemnation from the UN, human rights groups and Arab leaders. Analysts doubt it will ever happen.
After Trump’s first comments on the issue, his officials suggested any relocation would be only temporary.
Under his plan, Trump wrote on Truth Social, Gazans “would have already been resettled in far safer and more beautiful communities, with new and modern homes, in the region”. The US would then be part of an effort to redevelop the enclave, he said.
His post did not make clear whether the two million residents of the Palestinian territory would be invited to return.
Under international law, attempts to forcibly transfer populations from occupied territory are strictly prohibited.
White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said on Wednesday that any displacement would be temporary. In his own comments, made on the same day, Secretary of State Rubio said the idea was for Gazans to leave the territory for an “interim” period while debris was cleared and reconstruction took place.
These views contradicted Trump’s initial comments on the matter. Speaking on Tuesday, when he proposed the development of Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East”, Trump suggested that the displacement of Palestinians would be permanent.
“The US will take over the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it too,” he said on Tuesday during a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who called the idea “worth paying attention to”.
The announcement took even senior Trump aides by surprise due to a lack of planning around the idea, the New York Times reported, citing four anonymous sources with knowledge of the discussions.
Trump’s fresh comment on Thursday that no American soldiers would be needed was more clearly in agreement with Leavitt, who said the US had not committed to putting “boots on the ground”.
Speaking soon after at a prayer breakfast, the president reflected briefly on the situation in Gaza, but did not mention his stated plans for the US to “take over” the territory.
After turning his attention to the Middle East, Trump said he hoped “his greatest legacy will be being known as a peacemaker and a unifier”.
Fifteen months of fighting have left the Gaza Strip, a territory 41km (25 miles) long and 10km (6 miles) wide, largely uninhabitable.
Entire districts have been razed to the ground. Agricultural land where greenhouses once stood has been reduced to sand and rubble.
The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has warned that it could take 21 years to remove and dispose of all debris.
It described the water and sanitation systems as “almost entirely defunct”, warned of mounting rubbish around camps and shelters, and highlighted the risk that chemicals from destroyed solar panels and the munitions being used could contaminate soil and water supplies.
More than 50 million tonnes of debris have accumulated as a result of the destruction, according to the UN body.
The Israeli military launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to an unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage.
More than 47,550 people have been killed and 111,600 injured in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.
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