Just before his meeting on Tuesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Donald Trump said the Palestinians had no “alternative” but to leave their homes in Gaza.
Speaking to journalists in the Oval office, Trump called Gaza, which has been decimated by the Israel-Ahamas War, a “demolition site” and suggested that its inhabitants would be “excited” to live elsewhere.
“I can’t how they could want to stay. It is a place of demolition,” he said, adding that going to a new piece of land “would be much better than returning to Gaza, who has had decades and decades of death.”
When asked if that would mean by force to people, Trump said: “I don’t think so. I think they had the opportunity, if they had an alternative, they have no alternative right now. They are there because they have no alternative. What do a large pile of debris have at this time?
“I think they would be delighted to do it,” he said, adding that right now, “they don’t have an option.”
Trump said he believes that the Palestinians would be better to move to neighboring Egypt or Jordan, a proposal that countries and others in the area have already rejected. “I think they should get a piece of good, fresh and beautiful land,” he said about the Palestinians. “Gaza has not worked.”
A spokesman for Hamas, Sami Abu Zuhri, criticized Trump’s comments, saying: “We consider it a recipe to create chaos and tension in the region.” “Our people in the Gaza Strip will not allow these plans to pass, and what is required is to end the occupation and aggression against our people, not expel them from their lands,” he said.
Trump made the comments shortly before greeting Netanyahu for a meeting at the White House, his first sitting with a foreign leader since the beginning of his second term.
“It’s here to see me and I’m here to listen,” Trump told reporters.
Trump observed the discussion at the White House as a “very big meeting” when he talked to journalists on Sunday. In his letter inviting Netanyahu to Washington last week, he wrote: “I hope to discuss how we can bring peace to Israel and its neighbors, and efforts to counteract our shared adversaries.”
Netanyahu said on Sunday that they will discuss “the critical problems that present us ahead of us: defeat Hamas, return to all our hostages and deal with the Iranian axis in all its components, an axis that also threatens the security of Israel, the medium East and the whole world.
The two are scheduled to meet at 4 PM ET and then hold a joint press conference approximately one hour later.
The Trump transition team helped the administration Biden to ensure a high fire and the hostage release agreement between Israel and the Hamas militant group. The next phase of the agreement is expected to be one of the issues that the two leaders argue on Tuesday.
The conflict began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched a terrorist attack against Israel in which 1,200 people died and 251 were taken as hostages. Israel retaliates with an aerial and land assault on Gaza, killing more than 47,000 people, most of them civilians, according to local officials. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been displaced.
The Israeli counteroffensive scale has led to the international conviction, but Netanyahu has defended its actions, more recently on the way to Washington.
“The decisions we have made during the war, combined with the heroism of the FDI soldiers, have already changed the face of the Middle East. They have changed it beyond recognition. I think that when working hard with President Trump, we can change Even more, for the better, “said Netanyahu.
Trump had said he wants Jordan and Egypt to accept more Palestinian refugees as part of an effort to “clean” Gaza.
Speaking to journalists before the meeting, Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, said the president referred to making the area “habitable.” He also said that the 5 -year timeline to rebuild Gaza in a future phase of the high fire agreement was unrealistic and “absurd.” National Security Advisor Mike Waltz said the reconstruction would probably take up to 15 years.
“There are 30,000 unleashed ammunition” in Gaza, Witkoff added. “It is the buildings that could advance at any time. There are no profits there, no, no, no work, electricity, gas, nothing. God knows what kind of disease could be resisting there.”
Netanyahu and Trump were close allies during Trump’s first mandate, but his relationship became tense after Netanyahu congratulated Joe Biden for winning the 2020 elections, while Trump was still challenging the results.
A few days after the October 7 attack, Trump told a crowd in a campaign rally that Netanyahu had “disappointed” during his first administration, arguing that he had been useless before the United States kill an Iranian general. That led to the criticism of his Republican rivals, and Trump then published on social networks, “#istandwithisrael” and “#istandwithbibi”, using Netanyahu’s nickname.
His relationship was repaired in July when Netanyahu visited Trump in his residence in Florida after having met Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris and after a failed attempt in Trump’s life.
Netanyahu said Sunday that the “fact that this will be [Trump’s] The first meeting with a foreign leader since its inauguration has great importance for the state of Israel “and” attests to the strength of the alliance between Israel and the United States. “
The trip is far from Netyahu’s first trip to the White House.
When he was well received on Monday in Blair House, the official residence of the White House of the White House, his decision, its director said that it was Netanyahu’s 14th visit to the residence, many more than any other foreign leader has done Since it was built in the nineteenth century.
