Trump wants US to ‘take over’ Gaza and own it ‘long term’, with Palestinians resettled – live updates – BBC.com
The US is “prepared to look at all options”, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth says in regards to Donald Trump’s proposal for the US to take a “long-term ownership position” of GazaWith the White House declining to rule out the forcible transfer of Palestinians from Gaza, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has warned “it is essential to avoid any form of ethnic cleansing”Secretary of State Marco Rubio says Trump’s “generous offer” to help clean up Gaza shouldn’t be viewed as a “hostile move”The Palestinian Authority says Palestinians won’t be resettled, while people in Gaza tell the BBC “this is our land”Some key US allies have also rejected the suggestion – the UK says Palestinians should “live and prosper in their homelands”, Egypt says Gaza should be redeveloped without its people leaving, while Saudi Arabia “rejects any attempts to displace the Palestinians”Is any of this serious? With Trump, it’s hard to tell, writes our correspondent Paul AdamsThis video can not be playedWatch: Palestinians react to Trump’s Gaza commentsEdited by Adam Durbin in Washington DCThomas MackintoshLive reporterIt’s been one of those days, where the world has been reacting to the comments of the American president, the night before.Flanked by Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu in the White House on Tuesday night, Donald Trump put forward a drastic shift in American policy towards the Middle East saying the US will take over the Gaza Strip and turn it into the Riviera of the region.A wave of international criticism has followed Trump’s call – including from France, Germany and the United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres who has warned the US against ethnic cleansing in Gaza.Throughout the day we have heard from defiant Palestinians who insist they will not go anywhere else other than Gaza. On the other hand, many Israelis have been expressing satisfaction at the radical ideas from the White House, particularly those on the far-right who seek to resettle Gaza.We will shortly be bringing a close to our live coverage of reaction to Trump’s comments – but for further reading check out my colleague Jeremy Bowen’s detailed take on whether the US President’s plan happens or not – it will have consequences for the region.Tom BatemanReporting from Washington DCAt the White House press briefing this afternoon, spokeswoman Caroline Leavitt displayed pictures of Gaza in ruins to promote President Donald Trump’s plan. Rights groups have previously accused Israel of possible war crimes over its extensive destruction of civilian property, it has justified this by claiming Hamas hides among the buildings. But the vast majority of bombs used to flatten them have been American-supplied, and now the White House was using images of the destruction to justify its plan to displace Palestinians. At the briefing, I asked Leavitt to rule out the use of compulsion, or forcible transfer to resettle people.She told me Trump is “committed to rebuilding Gaza” and relocating those living in the “demolition site” the territory has become. Leavitt also appeared to contradict Trump, who yesterday said the displacement would be permanent, while she said it would be temporary. Other elements of the proposal also seemed to be unravelling. When asked yesterday if US troops would be involved, Trump said he would do whatever it took. Today, Leavitt said he had not committed to use US forces.This issue has already divided Republicans, deeply concerned at the Gaza plan as Trump promised Americans he would keep the US out of foreign wars. But his chief diplomat Marco Rubio called the plan an “unique offer” that “people need to think about”, even though Trump said other countries would have to pay for the reconstruction. All senior US officials that have commented on the proposal, as well as Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu, have praised what they called Trump’s out-of-the-box thinking, saying he’s come up with a new solution to an old and bitter struggle.Some observers suggest though that the reverse is the case. They argue that in promoting the forced relocation of Palestinians, Trump has in fact come up with one of the oldest drivers of this conflict – Palestinian dispossession – which has often resulted in further instability, grievance and bloodshed.President Donald Trump has said this week that he plans to “take over” Gaza because it has been completely devastated during the war.Gaza has suffered vast destruction with a colossal humanitarian impact. More than 46,000 Palestinians have been killed during Israel’s military action, according to the Hamas-run health ministry – and much infrastructure across the strip has been levelled by air strikes.Our colleagues over in BBC Verify have analysed the scale of the damage caused by a conflict which has left much of Gaza in ruins.The United Nations Satellite Centre has calculated a higher figure – reporting that 69% of all structures had been destroyed or damaged at the start of December.BBC Verify has been monitoring evacuation orders in Gaza since the beginning of the conflict. Almost all of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have had to leave their homes as Israel has carried out continuous strikes across the territory and issued mass evacuation orders for large residential areas.The UN projects that 91% of people living in Gaza had faced high levels of acute food insecurity.You can read more of BBC Verify team’s analysis of the destruction in Gaza here.There has been a mix of reactions in US politics to Donald
Trump’s plan to rebuild Gaza.Democrats have universally panned the idea, with some accusing
the president of proposing to “ethnically cleanse” the area by
proposing to resettle as many as two million Palestinians. Some Republicans have also expressed scepticism of its
feasibility, especially over the US government funding the reconstruction or
putting troops on the ground. But many of Trump’s loyal supporters in his party have
vocally supported the concept, praising it as innovative thinking and likely to
bring peace, prosperity and stability to Gaza.Watch some of the biggest-name reactions below:This video can not be playedBrandon DrenonReporting from Washington DC”Stunned”, “appalling”, “triggering” – these are words Laila El-Haddad, a Palestinian-American author and activist, used to describe her reaction to Trump’s recent Gaza comments.”It just showed an utter sort of callous disdain and disregard for Palestinian lives and Palestinian humanity and Palestinian dignity, like it’s as though they’re just a pawn that are being played around with,” she tells me.”He was talking about Palestinians as though, again, they existed in some vacuum, as though they had just been the unfortunate victims of some natural disaster.”El-Hadded says she spent much of her childhood between Gaza and Saudi Arabia, and lived there again for a few years after finishing grad school – “always” longing to return.She left Gaza after marrying another Palestinian who, unlike her, did not have the appropriate pass to cross the border into the territory from Israel.El-Haddad says that “despite the fact that it’s besieged, destroyed, occupied, etc, it remains home”.”Everyday this is a topic of conversation on our groups – the moment the border is open, we want to go back.”Some of her group chats include relatives in Gaza and are “where we find out if someone has been killed or not”. El-Haddad says she spoke to her family there this morning and that they “categorically reject” Trump’s proposition.One told her: “Do you really think, after everything we endured, that we are going to succumb to this, that we are going to sort of willingly agree, or maybe not willingly, to be transferred from our homes?”It is still our home, rubble or no rubble.”A group formerly known as Arab Americans for Trump has changed their name to Arab Americans for Peace, in light of his remarks about taking over Gaza. The group told the Associated Press that they “appreciate the president’s offer to clean and rebuild Gaza” but they also “take issue with the president’s suggestion of taking over Gaza and removing its Palestinian inhabitants”.”The talk about what the president wants to do with Gaza, obviously we’re completely opposed to the idea of the transfer of Palestinians from anywhere in Historic Palestine,” Bishara Bahbah, the chairman of the group, told AP. “We did not want to be behind the curve in terms of pushing for peace, because that has been our objective from the very beginning,” he said. Brandon DrenonReporting from Washington DCIman Kishawi, a Palestinian woman born in Gaza but living in the
Los Angeles area, says the news of Trump’s remarks about the US taking control
of Gaza made her “very angry”.”Who are you to own the land,” she says, speaking of
Trump. “I got depressed a little.””We need to give people a chance to live on their
homeland,” she says, adding that losing your home is like “losing
your identity”.Kishawi, too, wishes to return to Gaza, telling me: “I just
have a yearning of going and belonging and helping my people.”The recent ceasefire agreement had brought her a rare moment of
hope since the start of the war, in which dozens of her family have been killed
– and renewed her desire to one day
get back to Gaza.But this aspiration has been tossed into doubt, following
Trump’s latest remarks.”The minute you see hope coming, it’s gone,” Kishawi
says.Alice CuddyReporting from JerusalemAl-Awda hospital in Jabalia, northern Gaza, has been the site of bombing during the Israel-Hamas conflictEarlier today I received a voice
note from Mohammed Salha, a doctor and acting director of al-Awda hospital in
northern Gaza.“Nobody in the world, even
Trump, is welcome to speak about Gaza or to tell us to move from Gaza to Egypt
or to Jordan. We will stay on our land,” he says.He tells me that the US
president’s comments have “put pressure” on people already dealing with death
and destruction. “He doesn’t know how the
Palestinian people are catching their lives, how the north of the Gaza Strip is
totally destroyed but we are still bringing life to the north after that. We
are still working and still providing services,” Salha says.He adds that among those who
have been at the hospital this week are women giving birth, who had returned to
the north after months of displacement in the south of Gaza.Brandon DrenonReporting from Washington DCTariq Luthun, a Palestinian-American living in Detroit, Michigan, has been watching the developments of the Israel-Gaza war in terror.When he last spoke to the BBC, he told us that he wakes up every day and immediately checks “if family members are alive”. Over a year later, Luthun describes his emotional journey as “pretty numb”.”[Trump’s] comments don’t really faze me, because here’s the thing – they’ve been trying to take over Gaza and Palestine forever,” he says.The president is “simply saying the quiet part out loud” and admitting “what we have seen over the course of the past several decades”.”[I’m] deeply traumatized obviously, but that trauma existed way before October 2023.,” Luthun adds.Canada’s foreign minister says the country’s longstanding position
on Gaza has not changed.”We are committed to achieving a two-state solution, where Israelis and Palestinians can live securely within internationally recognised borders,” Mélanie Joly said earlier in a post on X. “There is no role for Hamas in the governance of Gaza. “We support Palestinians’ right to self-determination, including from being forcibly displaced from Gaza.”Tom BatemanUS State Department correspondentDonald Trump’s proposals amount to the most radical transformation in the US position on Gaza since the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 and the war of 1967, which saw the start of Israel’s military occupation of land including the Gaza Strip.Gaza was already home to Palestinians who fled or were forced from their homes in the wars surrounding Israel’s creation.They and their descendants make up the vast majority of Gaza’s population to this day.Trump’s proposals, if enacted, would involve that population, now more than two million people, being forced elsewhere in the Arab world or even beyond, says Trump, to “resettle… permanently”.The proposals would wipe out the possibility of a future two-state solution in any conventional sense and will be categorically rejected by Palestinians and the Arab world as an expulsion plan.Much of Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s political base and the ultranationalist settler movement in Israel will champion President Trump’s words, seeing them as the fulfilment of a means as Netanyahu puts it to stop “Gaza being a threat to Israel”.For ordinary Palestinians, it would amount to a mass act of collective punishment.Thomas MackintoshLive reporterAlmost 24 hours have passed since Donald Trump met with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and said the US will take over Gaza, rebuild on the land and resettle Palestinians elsewhere.His comments sparked a flurry of reaction, here’s a recap of what has been said:We’ve just been hearing from Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth ahead of his meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu. Hegseth says that there is a “sense of purpose that permeates the State of Israel living under an existential threat” while Netanyahu says the US a “great…friend of Israel”.Questions to Hegseth, from the press, are dominated by Trump’s comments on Gaza.The defence secretary points to the “definition of insanity” as “doing the same thing over and over again” while saying Trump is “willing to think outside the box” – which we also heard from White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt in a briefing earlier.He adds that the US is “prepared to look at all options”. Asked specifically on whether there are plans to send troops to Gaza, Hegseth refers to “very complex and high-level negotiations” Trump is having. He says he will not “get ahead” of the President regarding any details on what the US may or may not do. Nada TawfikReporting from New York The UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has reacted to Donald Trump’s plan for the US to take over Gaza, saying it is “vital to stay true to the bedrock of international law” and “essential to avoid any form of ethnic cleansing.” As we mentioned earlier, he is addressing this year’s opening session of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. Mr Guterres warned “in the search for solutions, we must not make the problem worse.” He said Gaza was an integral part of the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, and that any durable peace would require tangible, irreversible and permanent progress towards the two state solution and an end to Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories, as affirmed by the International Court of Justice.He also emphasised the need to keep pushing for a permanent ceasefire and the release of all hostages without delay. He said the realization of the right of Palestinians “to simply live as human beings in their own land” was steadily slipping farther out of reach.”We have seen a chilling, systematic dehumanisation and demonisation of an entire people,” he told delegates at the UN meeting in New York.The Americast team has just uploaded its latest episode following the extraordinary news conference last night.Alongside Benjamin
Netanyahu, Donald Trump suggested the US could “own” the Gaza Strip and
turn it into “the Riviera of the Middle East”.His comments have
sparked condemnation from countries across the Middle East and the Palestinian
Authority says its people will not be resettled.The Americast team – featuring Sarah Smith, Anthony Zurcher and Marianna Spring – give
their analysis and ask whether Trump’s words should be taken at face value. Wyre DaviesReporting from JerusalemA moment ago, I touched on Israeli reaction to Trump’s comments on Gaza yesterday, which Palestinian leaders and
neighbouring Arab countries have dismissed the idea out of hand.While they
have often been, with some justification, accused of not always standing up for the national rights of Palestinians, Trump’s idea that hundreds of
thousands of people could be forcibly moved or encourage to leave Gaza is a red
line in the sand.The dream of a future
Palestinian state is still important to many in the Middle East, especially
young people who’ve been angered by images of death and destruction coming from
Gaza. The leaders of Jordan, Egypt and beyond also know that hundreds of
thousands of mainly Sunni Arabs arriving over their borders could easily upset
the demographics in what is an unstable and volatile region.That’s not to say on a
couple of points, at least, Trump is right; that Gaza resembles a
“demolition site” with more than 60% of its buildings destroyed or badly
damaged by one of the biggest bombing and shelling campaigns in military
history. Also, if there is no long-term solution to the Gaza “question”, then
it’s almost inevitable – say observers and reporters who’ve witnessed several
conflicts there in recent decades – that we’ll be back in the same scenario in
four or five years’ time.Wyre DaviesReporting from JerusalemMost Israeli reaction to
Donald Trump’s outlandish plan for Gaza has been incredulity and disbelief. Few
people seriously think that when the war in Gaza eventually ends, the next
stage will develop in a way anything like that set out by the US president. What many Israelis, who’ve been buoyed by the sight of hostages
being released under the ceasefire deal, are concerned about is that Trump’s
intervention may throw a spanner in the works of the ceasefire progressing to a
second stage.That is apart from a
minority but vocal group of politicians on the far-right of Israeli politics. Itamar Ben Gvir who left Benjamin’s Netanyahu’s cabinet in protest over the
Gaza ceasefire said, on social media, “Donald, this looks like the beginning of
a beautiful friendship.” The former minister, who remains influential, has
previously suggested that Palestinians should be “encouraged” to leave Gaza,
called upon Netanyahu to adopt the Trump proposals as official Israeli
government policy.Our colleagues over at BBC Verify have taken a look at whether Trump can act on his comments yesterday that “the US will took over the Gaza strip”.Watch their analysis below:This video can not be playedMadeline HalpertUS ReporterTrump’s proposal to “take over” Gaza and displace Palestinians has alarmed many Arab and Muslim Americans. That goes for community leaders in Dearborn, Michigan, the largest Arab American-majority city in the US. In the former Democratic stronghold, Trump received 42% of the vote in the 2024 election – as many cast protest votes over the former-president Joe Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza. Abbas Alawieh, who founded the Uncommitted movement – a group protesting US support of Israel – says people who listened to Trump’s pledge for “peace in the Middle East” during his campaign are likely feeling betrayed by his most recent comments. Alawieh, who voted for Kamala Harris, says Trump’s plan is “reckless, delusional” and “criminal”. “It would lead to immense human suffering,” he tells the BBC. Rexhinaldo Nazarko, the executive director of the American Muslim Engagement and Empowerment Network in Dearborn, says Trump’s comments were “an attempt to justify ethnic cleansing”. “Forcing an entire population out of their homeland is a war crime, a moral catastrophe, and a direct violation of international law,” he says. “If President Trump is serious about peace in the Middle East, he needs to make it clear right now that he does not support the forced displacement of Palestinians.” Jeremy BowenInternational EditorThe plan, as expressed by Donald Trump, is not going to happen. It requires the co-operation of Arab states that have rejected it.They include Jordan and Egypt – countries that Trump wants to take in Gaza’s Palestinians – and Saudi Arabia, which might be expected to foot the bill.Western allies of the US and Israel are also against the idea.Some – perhaps many – Palestinians in Gaza might be tempted to get out if they had the chance.But even if a million left, as many as 1.2m others would still be there.Presumably the United States – the new owners of Trump’s “Riviera of the Middle East” – would have to use force to remove them.After America’s catastrophic intervention in Iraq in 2003, that would be deeply unpopular in the US.Jeremy Bowen’s analysis continues here.Copyright © 2025 BBC. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking.
