Trump says 'we'll own' Gaza Strip. Who owns it now? Where is Gaza?
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump, proposing a major shift in Middle East policy, called for the U.S. to take over the Gaza Strip and relocate roughly two million Palestinians to neighboring Arab countries. His goal, he said, is to turn the war-ravaged enclave into the "Riviera of the Middle East."
The statement escalates a proposal he made a week ago, when Trump said he wanted to "clean out" the seaside enclave and send all its residents to Egypt and Jordan.
''We'll own it," Trump said in a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in his first White House meeting. "Level it out, create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area."
What is the Gaza Strip?
The Gaza strip is a small strip of land that sits between Israel and Egypt. It is located on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Gaza is the smaller of the two Palestinian territories, along with the West Bank, that make up Palestine.
Who owns the Gaza Strip now?
Since 2006, the Gaza Strip has been under control of Hamas after it won a 2006 election. That was the last election held. For the past 19 years, it's been under Hamas' control.
Trump pushes to resettle Palestinians in neighboring countries
A ceasefire deal agreed upon in January between Israel and Hamas — one which a Trump official helped broker — calls for a three- to five-year reconstruction phase in Gaza. But senior officials in the Trump administration now say it’s likely to take much longer.
Officials said Tuesday that it will take at least 10 to 15 years, and Trump is looking for solutions that will allow the more than two million Palestinians who currently reside there to live as normal lives as possible.
The "Gaza thing has not worked — it's never worked," Trump said. Palestinians, he said, "should get a good, fresh, beautiful piece of land, and we get some people to put up the money to build it and make it nice and make it habitable and enjoyable. If we could find the right piece of land, or numerous pieces of land, and build them some really nice places, with plenty of money in the area, that's for sure, I think that would be a lot better than going back to Gaza."
U.S. support for an independent Palestinian state in question
It has long been the position of the U.S. to support the creation of an independent Palestinian state, and Trump in his first term proposed a two-state solution that offered full control of Jerusalem to Israel, including holy sites that are claimed by both sides, as a condition.
Asked Tuesday if he still supports that plan, Trump said “a lot of plans change with time and a lot of death has occurred since I left and now came back.”
But a senior Trump administration official declined to say Tuesday ahead of Netanyahu's visit whether the U.S. supports a two-state solution. The official said that Trump is focused on removing Hamas from power and securing the release of hostages.
Netanyahu has long opposed Palestinian statehood, and it wasn't immediately clear on Tuesday how Trump's Gaza proposal factored into the discussion.
Does the proposal jibe with Trump's 'America first' policy? One Democratic senator says it's worth considering
Mike Duran, the senior director for Near East and North African affairs at the National Security Council under former President George W. Bush, said he’d never heard anyone talk about the U.S. taking over Gaza before.
“It was the last thing that I expected from Donald Trump,” Duran said. “He represents, in many ways, a desire to get the United States less involved in places like the Middle East.”