WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Monday reiterated his desire to move Palestinians from Gaza to “safer” locations such as Egypt or Jordan, and said he would meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington “very soon.”
The president on Saturday floated the idea to “clean out” Gaza after more than 15 months of war between Israel and Hamas had reduced the Palestinian territory to a “demolition site.”
Asked about those comments, Trump told reporters Monday evening on Air Force One he would “like to get them living in an area where they can live without disruption and revolution and violence so much.”
“You know, when you look at the Gaza Strip, it’s been hell for so many years… there’s always been violence associated with it,“ he said.
When pressed on what that would mean for a two-state solution, he said he would be meeting with Netanyahu “in the not too distant future.”
“He’s coming here to meet with me,“ he said.
Trump has also held talks in recent days with Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who have historically opposed displacing Palestinians.
“I wish he would take some,“ Trump said of al-Sisi. “We helped them a lot, and I’m sure he’d help us.”
“As they say, it’s a rough neighborhood, but I think he would do it, and I think the king of Jordan would do it too,“ he added.
Almost all of the Gaza Strip’s 2.4 million inhabitants have been displaced by the war provoked by Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
A ceasefire underway is due to last six weeks, allowing the release of 33 hostages held in Gaza against some 1,900 Palestinian prisoners.
During this first phase, the terms of the second phase are to be negotiated, with the aim of freeing the last hostages and bringing the war to a definitive end.
The final stage will involve the reconstruction of Gaza and the return of the bodies of the last hostages who died in captivity.
Former president Joe Biden’s administration drew up a series of plans for the post-war period in Gaza, but Trump has so far made no mention of them.
