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President Donald Trump’s proposal that the United States “take over” the Gaza Strip and permanently resettle its Palestinian residents was swiftly rejected and denounced on Wednesday by American allies and adversaries alike.
Trump’s suggestion came at a White House news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who smiled several times as the president detailed a plan to build new settlements for Palestinians outside the Gaza Strip, and for the US to take “ownership” in redeveloping the war-torn territory into “the Riviera of the Middle East.”
“The US will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too,” Trump said.
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“We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site, and get rid of the destroyed buildings, level it out, create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs.”
His remarks drew swift opposition and were certain to roil the ceasefire talks between Hamas and Israel.
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad group has denounced Trump’s “racist comments,” vowing to fight the US president’s plans in Gaza.
The group said in a statement that Israel’s bombing campaign had failed to force Palestinians to leave Gaza and that Trump’s “recent comments won’t succeed in transferring them.”
He vowed to fight against any plans to move the Palestinians from their territories.
“Our Palestinian people always have the resistance option, which they have practised for more than a century,” it said.
Egyptian and Palestinian officials are calling for rebuilding Gaza by forcing the Palestinians.
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Egypt’s foreign minister and the Palestinian prime minister on Wednesday called to rebuild Gaza without forcing out its Palestinian residents.
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa provided “an embodied vision” for clearing the rubble and rebuilding Gaza in cooperation with foreign groups, according to an Egyptian Foreign Ministry after Mustafa met with Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdeatty in Cairo.
The press release did not face Trump’s comments, but said the two parties had called to increase the reconstruction and supply of the aid “without taking the Palestinians from the gaza strip. “
Turkey Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said President Donald Trump’s comments on the Gaza Strip are “unacceptable. “
Fidan, in an interview with the state-run Anadolu firm on Wednesday, said that the displacement beyond Palestinians of their land and Israeli settlement in those regions was the root cause of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“Gaza deportations are nothing that the region or we would accept. Even thinking about it, in my opinion, is false and absurd, “he said.
Fidan added that there is a consensus for a solution of two states, with this Jerusalem as the capital of a sovereign Palestinian state.
Fidan also reiterated his fear that the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, can resume attacks against Gaza after the release of all Israeli hostages that were maintained through Hamas and wondered how the countries involved in maintaining the ceasefies -fo They would be effective.
“We have to see what kind of position or sanctions that the guarantor countries can take. Of the countries that ensure the ceasefire, the one that can exert significant tension against Israel is the United States,” Fidan said.
China opposes the forced relocation of other people in Gaza, said a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China in Beijing on Wednesday when he questioned Trump’s comments.
“China has believed that the Palestinian regime is the fundamental precept of post -war governance in Gaza,” said Lin Jian spokesman.
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He reiterated Beijing’s long help for a solution to two states to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
US House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, praised Trump’s remarks as taking a “bold action in hopes of achieving lasting peace in Gaza.”
“We hope this brings stability and security to the region,” he wrote in X.
An official with Yemen’s Houthi rebels has criticized President Donald Trump in the Gaza Strip.
Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, an Hutí leader, wrote on the social platform X that Trump’s comments represented the “American arrogance” that consumes everything if met through the “subjugation of Arabs. “
“If Egypt or Jordan or both to challenge the United States, Yemen will be sustained with all its strength through its side, to the maximum remote and without red lines,” he added.
The Houthis launched attacks on Israel and commercial shipping running through the Red Sea corridor during the Israel-Hamas war. Its attacks have stopped with the ceasefire in the war, but transits through the Suez Canal, crucial to Egypt’s economy, halved during its campaign.
U. S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio supported President Donald Trump in the Gaza Strip.
“Gaza MUST BE FREE from Hamas,” Rubio wrote on the social platform X.
“The United States stands ready to lead and Make Gaza Beautiful Again,” Rubio wrote in a play on Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan. “Our pursuit is one of lasting peace in the region for all people.”
However, the comments by Trump drew immediate criticism from Saudi Arabia and others in the Mideast, which long has advocated for the Palestinians to have an independent state of their own in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, with east Jerusalem as its capital.