President Donald Trump on Tuesday evening said the United States “will take over the Gaza Strip,” and “we’ll own it.”
Trump said that all Palestinians currently living in Gaza — nearly 2 million people — should leave the territory and be placed in other countries in the Middle East, among them Jordan and Egypt.
He said the U.S. could then re-develop Gaza, which has been decimated during a war with Israel.
“Gaza is a hellhole,” Trump said at the White House during a joint news conference with Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He later suggested that Gaza could be “the Riviera of the Middle East.”
Netanyahu, when asked about the U.S. taking over Gaza, said, “I think it’s something that could change history.”
“And I think it’s really worth pursuing this avenue,” he added.
Trump’s suggestion that the United States should take over Gaza was a new one for him.
But it comes on the heels of his suggestions that the U.S. buy or take over Greenland from Denmark, that Canada becomes a 51st state for the U.S., and that the U.S. take back control of the Panama Canal.
“The US will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too,” Trump said Monday.
“We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site, and get rid of the destroyed buildings, level it out, create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area,” Trump said.
“Do a real job, do something different.”
This is breaking news. Please refresh for updates.