https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/donald-trump-gaza-take-over-netanyahu-israel-war-hamas-rcna190744Trump fuels fury and fear in the Middle East after vowing to 'take over' the Gaza StripFor Palestinians, President Donald Trump's comments were a chilling reminder of the “Nakba” of 1948, when some 700,000 Palestinians were forced from their homes during the creation of the state of Israel.
Feb. 5, 2025, 3:57 AM PST
By Chantal Da Silva
Outraged Palestinians condemned President Donald Trump's claim the United States would seek ownership of the Gaza Strip and they would have no choice but to leave their homes in the war-torn enclave.
In Gaza's southern city of Khan Younis, Narmin Nour El Din, 29, told an NBC News crew that all Palestinians would reject Trump's suggestions.
“All the Palestinians refuse the idea and we will be insistent on our land,” she said, standing outside a tent encampment.
“We ask Trump to leave the people to live in their land and to make the land more beautiful. To help the people here,” she said. “Not to take Gaza from them.”
Others like Hussein Abdel Jawad, 25, said they feared Trump’s plan would succeed and he felt clear that Trump had “business” ambitions for the enclave.
At a news conference Tuesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump said the United States would take a “long-term ownership position” and would bring “great stability to the Middle East.”
“We’ll own it,” he said. Asked who would live in the territory he envisioned as the “riviera of the Middle East” Trump, a longtime real estate developer, answered: “The world’s people.”
Palestinians would also live there among “many” others, he said in comments that stood in stark contrast to those he made earlier in the day when he repeatedly called Gaza a “demolition site” from which Palestinians should be relocated.
The plan has been criticized for ignoring the Palestinian cause at its most basic — the creation of an internationally recognized state. The United States, the Palestinians and the international community have long considered the Gaza Strip to be an integral part of this future state, although negotiations have languished for decades.
For some, Trump’s proposal will also be a reminder of the “Nakba” — the Arabic word for “catastrophe” used to describe the 1948 displacement of some 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were forced from their homes during the founding of Israel.
And Palestinian politicians of all persuasions were united in their condemnation of the comments.
Izzat Al-Rishq, a senior member of Hamas, which ruled Gaza after 2007 and has survived 15 months of war with Israel, said that the proposal reflected Trump’s “confusion and deep ignorance.”
President Mahmoud Abbas, a longtime opponent of Hamas whose Palestinian Authority governs the occupied West Bank, also rejected the comments. And Mustafa Barghouti, leader of his rival Palestinian National Initiative party, said in a statement that the “conspiracy of ethnic cleansing will not succeed in Gaza or the West Bank.”
Around 60% of Gaza’s infrastructure, including schools and hospitals, has been destroyed during Israel's military offensive on the enclave, according to estimates published by the United Nations.
Netanyahu ordered his forces into Gaza after Hamas' terrorist attack of Oct. 7, 2023, the deadliest attack in Israeli history, in which some 1,200 people were killed and around 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies, marking a major escalation in a decadeslong conflict.
More than 47,500 Palestinians have been killed since then, according to health officials in the Gaza Strip, though researchers have estimated that the death toll is likely much higher.
In Israel, meanwhile, Trump’s comments were met with mixed reactions. Right-wing lawmakers were quick to embrace the proposals, while other prominent Israelis condemned it.
Calling Gaza a “failed experiment,” Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar suggested Israelis should consider the “new ideas put forward by the U.S. president.” The country's ultranationalist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, also said Trump's plan was the best response to the Hamas attack on Israel.
His fellow far-right lawmaker, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who resigned from his post as Israeli national security minister last month in protest against the ceasefire and hostage release deal with Hamas, called on Netanyahu to adopt Trump’s plan “and to begin promoting it immediately.”
Elsewhere, Gershon Baskin, an Israeli peace activist and veteran hostage negotiator, condemned Trump’s proposal. The U.S. “has no right to relocate Palestinians” or to “make decisions for the Palestinian people,” he said.
Israel dismantled its settlements in Gaza as it withdrew from the territory in 2005 after 38 years of occupation.
But Diana Buttu, a Palestinian-Canadian lawyer, said Trump’s plan was “not surprising, because it’s not new.” Buttu, a former spokesperson for the Palestine Liberation Organization, noted that Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, along with several other right-wing Israeli lawmakers, recently attended conferences calling for the resettlement of Gaza.
Elsewhere in the Middle East, U.S. allies Saudi Arabia and Egypt did not officially criticize Trump's proposal. Instead both said the focus should be on rebuilding the enclave and addressing the humanitarian crisis there.
Saudi Arabia also said it would not normalize relations with Israel, a goal of American and Israeli government, until a two-state solution has been reached.
