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Trump: U.S. will ‘take over’ and rebuild Gaza

Trump laid out a plan for the relocation of all Gazans, U.S. rebuilding of the Strip and resettlement of it by ‘the world’s people’

Joshua Sukoff/Medill News Service

President Donald J. Trump holds a joint news conference at the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on February 4, 2025.

Standing alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Tuesday, President Donald Trump proposed that the U.S. will “take over” the Gaza Strip after relocating the Palestinians living there and redevelop the area.

The U.S. “will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too,” Trump said. “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.”

Asked if he envisions this plan as a “permanent occupation,” Trump said, “I do see a long-term ownership position … Everybody I’ve spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land, developing and creating thousands of jobs with something that will be magnificent in a really magnificent area. … This is an idea that’s gotten tremendous — and I’m talking about from the highest level of leadership — gotten tremendous praise.”

As for whether there would be American troops on the ground in Gaza, the president, who has argued in the past that the U.S. should get out of “forever wars,” said: “If necessary, we’ll do that.”  

Trump said he hoped to see “the world’s people,” including Palestinians, living in this “international, unbelievable place,” and called Gaza the “Riviera of the Middle East.”

Pressed about countries other than Jordan and Egypt accepting relocated Palestinians, Trump replied that there “could be other places” that take them in.

“There are many people that have reached out, many countries, many leaders of countries that have reached out that would like to participate in that.” When pushed on how many Gazans he was talking about relocating, Trump answered, “All of them. We’re talking about probably 1.7 million people, maybe 1.8 million.”

Reporters also asked Trump if he supports Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria, the biblical name for the West Bank. The president responded that “people do like the idea, but we haven’t taken a position on it yet. But we will be making an announcement probably on that very specific topic over the next four weeks.”

Trump also made several comments about Iran on Tuesday, including that he had given his team orders to “obliterate” Iran if they assassinated him or made another attempt on his life — but said he’d still meet with the country’s leader to engage in talks on curtailing Tehran’s nuclear program. 

Trump made the comments after signing what he described as a “very tough” executive order from the Oval Office restarting his “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran’s government and its nuclear ambitions. The president said he was “torn” about signing the order, explaining that, “it’d be great if we could have a Middle East, and maybe a world, at total peace right now.” 

“I’m signing this and I’m unhappy to do it, but I really have not so much choice because we have to be strong and firm. I hope that it’s not going to have to be used in any great measure at all,” Trump said of the order on Iran. 

Trump’s remarks prompted Fox News’ Peter Doocy to ask Trump why he was “unhappy to sign it if it’s Iran and their proxies who have threatened to retaliate against you and your team by killing you guys for taking out [Iranian Gen. Qassem] Soleimani?”

“Well, they haven’t done that, and that would be a terrible thing for them to do, not because of me. If they did that, they would be obliterated. That would be the end. I’ve left instructions. If they do it, they get obliterated. There won’t be anything left,” Trump responded. 

“They [Iran] shouldn’t be able to do it, and [former President Joe] Biden should have said that but he never did. I don’t know why, lack of intelligence, perhaps. But he never said it,” he continued. “If that happens to a leader or close to a leader, frankly, if you had other people involved also, you would call for total obliteration of a state that did it, that would include Iran.”

The Justice Department announced in November that it had charged Farhad Shakeri in a thwarted murder-for-hire plot orchestrated by Iran against Trump ahead of the presidential election. U.S. authorities have also accused Iran of plotting assassination attempts against Trump’s former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former National Security Advisor John Bolton for their involvement in the killing of Soleimani in 2020. 

Despite this, Trump said after signing the executive order that he would willingly engage with the Iranians and would not rule out initiating outreach to Tehran. 

“I would reach out [to the Iranians about a deal],” Trump said. “See, I’m one that doesn’t care whether I reach out or they reach out. A lot of people say, ‘Let them reach out, sir.’ To me, it doesn’t matter. It’s just talk.”

Trump said he was “going to see” what kind of deal he was prepared to make, but added: “They cannot have a nuclear weapon. With me it’s very simple, Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. We don’t want to be tough on Iran, we don’t want to be tough on anybody, but they just can’t have a nuclear weapon.”

The president was noncommittal when pressed on two occasions if he’d support an Israeli operation to take out Iran’s nuclear facilities. “We’ll see what happens,” Trump replied when asked about the idea by Jewish Insider during his bilateral meeting with Netanyahu in the Oval Office.

Netanyahu’s visit takes place amid lingering questions about the 47th president’s vision for his country and the Middle East broadly, especially regarding what he wants to see happen with Iran’s nuclear program, the war in Gaza and on normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel. The prime minister expressed confidence despite the uncertainty while speaking to reporters in the Oval Office. 

“When Israel and the United States work together, when President Trump and I work together, the chances [of meeting the war aims] go up a lot,” Netanyahu said. “When the other side sees daylight between us, and occasionally in the last few years, they saw daylight, that is more difficult. When we cooperate, chances are good.”

Netanyahu told his advisors on Monday evening ahead of the summit, “I’ve been to the White House dozens of times, but this is the most important and historic meeting of all.”

An Israeli official told JI that the president “doesn’t want to see Hamas in Gaza. [Netanyahu and Trump] see eye to eye.” They added that Israel also made it “clear” that the Palestinian Authority “cannot be in Gaza,” and noted that the PA “incentivizes terror acts against Israel.” 

Asked if the Saudis are demanding a Palestinian state or even a path to a Palestinian state in return for normalization, Trump said no. “Everyone is demanding one thing. You know what that is? Peace. We want peace. We want people to stop being killed,” he said. 

On the issue of the ongoing hostage-release deal, Trump said at the press conference, “We’d like to get all of the hostages [out of Gaza]. And if we don’t, it will just make us somewhat more violent, I’ll tell you that, because they [Hamas] would’ve broken their word.”

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