WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump posted a seemingly AI-generated video to his Truth Social account late Tuesday night promoting his plan for the U.S. to take control of Gaza, featuring golden statues of himself, a hummus-eating Elon Musk and a beachfront resort.
The video opens on children walking through rubble with a title card asking “What’s next?” before transitioning to a tunnel opening to a pristine beach dotted with skyscrapers.
“Donald’s coming to set you free, bringing the life for all to see,” a robotic voice sings over the footage. “No more tunnels, no more fear. Trump Gaza is finally here.”
The post, which features the dreamy, nonsensical quality inherent to most AI-generated videos, focuses heavily on images of Trump’s face and homages to him, but includes bearded belly dancers and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lounging on the beach.
Trump has proposed that the U.S. take over the territory bordering Israel and develop it, expelling 2.1 million Palestinians from the region in the process to create a “Riviera of the Middle East.”
It’s unclear how much force Trump is putting behind the idea of taking control of the area. On Friday, he told Fox News that he wasn’t pushing the idea.
“The way to do it is my plan,” he said. “I think that’s the plan that really works. But I’m not forcing it. I’m just going to sit back and recommend it.”
The plan has drawn swift backlash from much of the world, with U.S. allies and powers in the region saying the idea of Palestinian resettlement was a non-starter.
Still, Trump has continued to push for the plan and Netanyahu has publicly backed it.
Gaza remains in the center of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. There have been 15 months of fighting since the militant group’s Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel that sparked the conflict. The first phase of the ceasefire is set to expire to expire in a matter of days.
After Trump originally proposed U.S. control over Gaza, Egyptian officials put forward their own plan, which would rebuild Gaza without forcing Palestinians out of the strip.
Egypt’s state-run Al-Ahram newspaper said the proposal calls for establishing “secure areas” within Gaza where Palestinians can live initially while Egyptian and international construction firms remove and rehabilitate the strip’s infrastructure.
Egyptian officials have been discussing the plan with European diplomats as well as with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, according to two Egyptian officials and Arab and Western diplomats. They are also discussing ways to fund the reconstruction, including an international conference on Gaza reconstruction, said one of the Egyptian officials and an Arab diplomat.