MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that U.S. President Donald Trump’s remarks about resettling the Palestinians from Gaza and establishing U.S. ownership of the Strip were shocking and would ramp up tensions in the Middle East.
Trump said on Thursday that Israel would hand over Gaza to the United States after fighting was over and the enclave’s population was already resettled elsewhere, which he said meant no U.S. troops would be needed on the ground.
Earlier this week, Trump said he wanted to resettle Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Egypt and Jordan, demolish remaining buildings to make way for a Riviera-style development project and place the occupied territory under U.S. “ownership”.
“The main thing now is to provide the necessary humanitarian assistance to all those in need,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters. “We believe that the main task today is to ensure the implementation of agreements between Israel and Hamas.”
“Any populist, frivolous, or shocking arguments about any other palliative measures at the present stage are counterproductive and do not contribute to solving the problem, but only fuel tension in the region and to all the already extremely aggravated problems,” Zakharova said of Trump’s remarks.
(Reporting by Dmitry Antonov; Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Andrew Osborn)
