• Proposes six Palestinian sites outside enclave
• Calls plan a ‘real estate development for the future’

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said Palestinians would have no right of return to Gaza under his US takeover plan, describing his proposal in excerpts of an interview released on Monday as a “real estate development for the future”.

Trump told Fox News Channel’s Bret Baier that “I would own it” and that there could be as many as six different sites for Palestinians to live outside Gaza under the plan, which the Arab world and others in the international community have rejected.

“No, they wouldn’t, because they’re going to have much better housing,” Trump said when Baier asked if the Palestinians would have the right to return to the enclave, most of which has been reduced to rubble by Israel’s military since October 2023.

“In other words, I’m talking about building a permanent place for them because if they have to return now, it’ll be years before you could ever — it’s not habitable.” Trump first revealed the shock Gaza plan during a joint news conference with visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, drawing outrage from Palestinians.

The US president pressed his case for Palestinians to be moved out of Gaza, devastated by the conflict, and for Egypt and Jordan to take them.

In the Fox interview, Trump said he would build “beautiful communities” for the more than two million Palestinians who live in Gaza.

“Could be five, six, could be two. But we’ll build safe communities, a little bit away from where they are, where all of this danger is,” added Trump.

“In the meantime, I would own this. Think of it as a real estate development for the future. It would be a beautiful piece of land. No big money spent.”

‘Unacceptable’

Trump stunned the world when he announced out of the blue last week that the United States would “take over the Gaza Strip,” remove rubble and unexploded bombs and turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East”.

But while he initially said that Palestinians could be among the “world people” allowed to live there, he has since appeared to harden his position to suggest that they could not.

Netanyahu on Sunday praised Trump’s proposal as “revolutionary”, striking a triumphant tone in a statement to his cabinet following his return from Washington.

“President Trump came with a completely different, much better vision for Israel,” said Netanyahu, who was reportedly only briefed on the plan shortly before Trump’s announcement.

The reaction from much of the rest of the world has been one of outrage, with Egypt, Jordan, other Arab nations and the Palestinians all rejecting it out of hand.

The criticism was not limited to the Arab world, with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Sunday labeling the plan “a scandal,” adding that the forced relocation of Palestinians would be “unacceptable and against international law”.

Trump’s plan has also threatened to disrupt the fragile six-week ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, and the chances of it progressing to a second, more permanent phase.

Trump, however, repeated his insistence that he could persuade Egypt and Jordan, both major recipients of US military aid, to come around.

“I think I could make a deal with Jordan. I think I could make a deal with Egypt. You know, we give them billions and billions of dollars a year,” he told Fox.

Last year, Trump described Gaza as being “like Monaco,” while his son-in-law Jared Kushner suggested that Israel could clear Gaza of civilians to unlock “waterfront property”.

Published in Dawn, February 11th, 2025