A Palestinian minister has said US President Donald Trump’s idea to rebuild the Gaza Strip as a swanky riviera is unacceptable unless it is for Gazans themselves to live in, AFP reports.

“It’s very good to rebuild Gaza as a riviera — but with its people in it,” said Palestinian minister of state for foreign affairs Varsen Aghabekian.

Aghabekian said displacing Gazans elsewhere was “unacceptable, by all means”.

“Let it become a riviera,” she said, “but for its people, who have been suffering for such a long time and deserve that their place becomes a riviera rather than a besieged place that smells of death.”