US President Donald Trump said Palestinians would not have the right of return to the Gaza Strip under his proposal to redevelop the enclave, contradicting his own officials who had suggested Gazans would only be relocated temporarily.
In an excerpt of a Fox News interview released yesterday, Trump added that he thought he could make a deal with Jordan and Egypt to take the displaced Palestinians, saying the US gives the two countries ‘billions and billions of dollars a year’.
Asked if Palestinians would have the right to return to Gaza, Trump told Fox News: “No, they wouldn’t because they’re going to have much better housing”.
“I’m talking about building a permanent place for them,” he said, adding it would take years for Gaza to be habitable again.
In a shock announcement on February 4 after meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington, Trump proposed resettling Gaza’s 2.2 million Palestinians and the US taking control of the seaside enclave, redeveloping it into the ‘Riviera of the Middle East’.
Residents of Gaza have broadly rejected any suggestion of moving from the strip, as has the Palestinian Authority and Hamas that administers Gaza.
Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said Trump’s statement that Palestinians would not be able to return to Gaza was ‘irresponsible’.
“We affirm that such plans are capable of igniting the region,” he told Reuters yesterday.
Netanyahu, who praised the proposal, suggested Palestinians would be allowed to return. “They can leave, they can then come back, they can relocate and come back. But you have to rebuild Gaza,” he said the day after Trump’s announcement.
Trump had said on Sunday he is committed to buying and owning Gaza, but could allow sections of the war-ravaged land to be rebuilt by other states in the Middle East.
“I’m committed to buying and owning Gaza. As far as us rebuilding it, we may give it to other states in the Middle East to build sections of it, other people may do it, through our auspices. But we’re committed to owning it, taking it, and making sure that Hamas doesn’t move back.”
Trump made his remarks to reporters aboard Air Force One on his way to New Orleans to attend the National Football League Super Bowl championship.
“There’s nothing to move back into. The place is a demolition site. The remainder will be demolished. Everything’s demolished,” he said.
Trump also said he was open to the possibility of allowing some Palestinian refugees into the US, but would consider such requests on a case-by-case basis.
Ezzat El Rashq, a member of the Hamas political bureau, condemned Trump’s latest remarks on buying and owning Gaza, the group said in a statement.
“Gaza is not a property to be sold and bought. It is an integral part of our occupied Palestinian land,” and Palestinians will foil displacement plans, Rashq added.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who will depart later this week for his first visit to the Middle East in the job, said on Thursday that Palestinians would have to ‘live somewhere else in the interim’, during reconstruction, although he declined to explicitly rule out their permanent displacement.
Israel’s Arab neighbours, including Egypt and Jordan, have said any plan to transfer Palestinians from their land would destabilise the region.
Rubio met Egypt’s Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty in Washington yesterday. Egypt’s foreign ministry said Abdelatty told Rubio that Arab countries support Palestinians in rejecting Trump’s plan. Cairo fears Palestinians could be forced across Egypt’s border with Gaza.
Trump is set to host Jordan’s King Abdullah at the White House today.
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