President Donald Trump retired a vision in which the United States would take control of Gaza, after the officials of his administration seemed to contradict his previous comments.
“The Gaza Strip would be given to the United States by Israel at the end of the fighting,” Trump said on Thursday. He reiterated that the idea would mean the resettlement of the Palestinians and that no American soldier would be necessary.
Trump’s resettlement idea caused accusations that he plans ethnic cleaning and aroused UN condemnation, human rights and Arab leaders. Analysts doubt it will ever happen.
After Trump’s first comments on the issue, his officials suggested that any relocation would only be temporary.
In his plan, Trump wrote on Truth Social, Gazans “would have already been resettled in much safer and more beautiful communities, with new and modern houses, in the region”. The United States would then be part of an effort to redevelop the enclave, he said.
His post did not specify whether the two million residents of the Palestinian territory would be invited to return.
Under international law, attempts to transfer populations of the occupied territory are strictly prohibited.
White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said on Wednesday that any trip would be temporary. In his own comments, made on the same day, Secretary of State Rubio said that the idea was that the Gazans left the territory for an “temporary” period while the debris was erased and the reconstruction took place.
These points of view contradicted Trump’s first comments on the issue. Speaking on Tuesday, when he proposed the development of Gaza in the “Riviera du Middle East”, Trump suggested that the displacement of the Palestinians would be permanent.
“The United States will take control of the Gaza Strip and we will also do a job with that,” he said on Tuesday during a Joint press conference With Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who described the idea of ​​”paying attention to”.
The announcement has even surprised Trump aid due to a lack of planning around the idea, said the New York Times, citing four anonymous sources of knowledge.
Trump’s new comment on Thursday that no American soldier would be necessary, was more clearly in agreement with Leavitt, who said that the United States had not committed to putting “boots on the ground”.
Speaking shortly after during a prayer breakfast, the president briefly thought about the situation in Gaza, but did not mention his plans declared for the United States to “take control” from the territory .
After turning his attention to the Middle East, Trump said that he hoped that “his greatest heritage will be known as a peacemaker and a unifier”.
Fifteen months of fighting left the Gaza strip, a 41 km (25 miles) territory long and 10 km (6 miles) wide, largely uninhabitable.
Whole districts have been shaved on the ground. The agricultural land where greenhouses were found were reduced on the sand and the rubble.
The United Nations Environment Program (UNP) warned that it could take 21 years to remove and eliminate all debris.
He described water and sanitation systems as “almost entirely disappeared”, warned of the rise of garbage in camps and shelters, and underlined the risk that the chemicals of destroyed solar panels and the ammunition used may Contaminate soil and water supplies.
According to the United Nations organization, more than 50 million tonnes of debris have accumulated following destruction.
The Israeli army launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to an unprecedented cross -border attack on October 7, 2023, in which around 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage.
More than 47,550 people have been killed and 111,600 injured in Gaza since then, according to the Hamas Ministry of Hamas in the territory.
