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The White House sought to suppose the fears of an extended American military intervention in Gaza, insisting that Donald Trump’s plan to assume control of the enclave did not necessarily mean putting “boots on the ground” .
Press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said that the president had made a “historic proposal for the United States to take over Gaza“, He had” not committed “to send American troops” still “.
“It was clearly indicated to the President that the United States must be involved in this reconstruction effort,” she said on Wednesday. “This does not mean boots on the ground in Gaza. This does not mean that American taxpayers will finance this effort. »»
Leavitt’s comments one day after Trump caused a tumult In the United States and worldwide with a proposal that the United States should “control“From the Palestinian enclave and that its entire population of 2.2 minutes should be reinstalled.
Leavitt said that residents of the enclave would be “temporarily relocated” while the band is rebuilt.
The idea was enthusiastically greeted by Israeli officials, the Minister of Defense Israel Katz said Thursday morning that he had ordered the soldiers to prepare a plan to allow the Gazans to leave the broken enclave “voluntarily”. Katz said that this would include options to go out by land, sea and air, but has given no other details.
However, Trump’s proposals aroused indignation in the Arab world and caused a hostile reaction, even many members of his own party in the United States, some Republicans saying that he has moved away from his program “America First “and his long -standing criticism of the American intervention in a foreigner” endless “foreigner wars.
“I thought we had voted for America first,” said Rand Paul, a republican senator from Kentucky. “We have no deal of considering another occupation to condemn our treasure and reverse the blood of our soldiers.”
Josh Hawley, a Missouri republican senator, has echoed his concerns. “I do not know that I think it is the best use of the resources of the United States to spend a heap of money in Gaza,” he told the Jewish initiate.
Lindsey Graham, a republican senator from South Carolina, described the plan as “problematic”. “I think most of the South Carolinians would probably not be delighted to imprint the Americans to resume Gaza,” he said.
Trump’s members of the cabinet quickly sought to reassure the party and the American public on the proposal, without providing details on how it would work.
The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, said that the president’s proposal was “not conceived as a hostile decision” but rather as a “reconstruction offer”.
“What he offers very generously is the ability of the United States to enter and help the elimination of debris, to help the elimination of ammunition, to help in reconstruction, to reconstruction of houses And companies and things of this nature, so that people can come back in, “he said.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Trump was “willing to go out of the beaten track” on the issue, but refused to provide details on the question of whether potential military participation was being studied.
“We are impatient to work with our allies, our counterparts, both diplomatically and militarily, to examine all the options, but we must certainly not get ahead of the president or provide details on what we can do or not,” -Ali said.
The Democrats, on the other hand, accused Trump of supporting the “ethnic cleaning” in the enclave and accused the president of having abandoned the needs of American voters to send funds in a distant region.
“He just said that it would be the American policy to move 2 million Palestinians from the Gaza Strip by force,” said Chris Van Hollen, a Democratic Senator of Maryland. “It is ethnic cleaning by another name.”
The member of the Democratic Congress Rashida Tlaib said: “He is perfectly well cutting the Americans who work federal funds while the financing of the Israeli government continues to flow.”
