By Steve Holland, Matt Spetalnick and Jeff Mason
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Donald Trump vowed on Tuesday that the U.S. would take over the war-shattered Gaza Strip after Palestinians are resettled elsewhere and develop it economically, a move that would shatter decades of U.S. policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Trump unveiled his surprise plan, without providing specifics, at a joint press conference with visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
That followed Trump’s proposal earlier on Tuesday for the permanent resettlement of Palestinians from Gaza to neighboring countries, calling the enclave a “demolition site.”
“The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too,” Trump told reporters. “We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site.”
“If it’s necessary, we’ll do that, we’re going to take over that piece, 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,” Trump added.
Asked who would live there, Trump said it could become a home to “the world’s people.”
Netanyahu said Trump was “thinking outside the box with fresh ideas” and was “showing willingness to puncture conventional thinking.”
But Trump did not directly respond to a question of how and under what authority the U.S. can take over the land of Gaza and occupy it in the long term.
Trump earlier repeated his call for Jordan, Egypt and other Arab states to take in Gazans, saying Palestinians there had no alternative but to abandon the coastal strip, which must be rebuilt after nearly 16 months of a devastating war between Israel and Hamas militants.
But this time Trump said he would support resettling Palestinians “permanently,” going beyond his previous suggestions that Arab leaders had already steadfastly rejected.
Just two weeks into his second term, Trump was hosting Netanyahu at the White House to discuss the future of the fragile Gaza ceasefire, strategies to counter Iran and hopes for a renewed push for an Israeli-Saudi normalization deal.
(Reporting by Jeff Mason, Matt Spetalnick and Steve Holland; Additional reporting by Kanishka Singh, Susan Heavey and Katherine Jackson in Washington, Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo; Writing by Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Howard Goller)
