President Trump now says Palestinians would not be allowed to return to Gaza under his plan to rebuild their war-ravaged homeland.
In an interview set to air Monday, Trump clarified that an estimated 2.3 million Gaza Palestinians would permanently move to some as yet undetermined site or sites in another country or countries.
“I’m talking about building a permanent place for them,” he told Fox News in a second part of his Super Bowl interview. “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.”
Once the Palestinians were gone from Gaza, Trump said the U.S., or he personally, would take it over and oversee a massive rebuilding effort to transform it into a “Riviera of the Middle East.”
“In the meantime, I would own this. Think of it as a real estate development for the future,” Trump said. “It would be a beautiful piece of land. No big money spent.”
Trump had previously been vague about whether Palestinians would be allowed to come back once the glitzy project is done.
He framed the idea as a necessary alternative to Palestinians returning to their homes immediately now that Israel and Hamas have agreed to a temporary ceasefire.
“If they return now, it’ll be years,” Trump said. “It’s not habitable.”
He has insisted no U.S. troops or major investment of taxpayer dollars would be required but hasn’t clarified how the financial or security details would work.
Trump surprised Israel and even his closest aides when he unveiled the out-of-the-box idea last week at a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
He framed the plan as a chance to break the seemingly intractable diplomatic and military stalemate between Israel and the Palestinians that has blocked progress for decades.
Trump hasn’t said what would happen if Palestinians refuse to leave the coastal enclave. Many of them are descended from refugees forced from their homes in what is now Israel during the Jewish state’s 1948 independence war.
Palestinians, in Gaza and the West Bank as well as in the diaspora, have mostly rejected the Trump plan. America’s closest Arab allies, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia, have also denounced it.
Trump says he can convince all the naysayers to come around to support the plan.
Israel has deemed the Trump plan an option worth considering and the military says it is preparing plans for the departure of Palestinians from Gaza.
Far right-wing Israelis have long advocated forcing Palestinians to leave large chunks of land that much of the rest of the world says should eventually form an independent Palestinian state.