Israel launched preparations to oust as much as 2 million Palestinians from Gaza as President Trump Thursday doubled down on his long-shot plan to “take over” and rebuild the war-ravaged coastal strip.
The Jewish state ordered officers to shortly create a plan for the departure of Palestinians from Gaza, simply as lots of them had been hoping to return to their broken or destroyed properties after greater than a yr of devastating struggle.
Israeli Protection Minister Israel Katz mentioned the army may facilitate the emigration of enormous numbers of Palestinians from Gaza via usually closed land crossings in addition to “special arrangements for exit by sea and air.”
A younger Palestinian carries jerricans alongside the destruction attributable to the Israeli air and floor offensive in Jabaliya, Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025. (AP Picture/Abdel Kareem Hana)
The Israeli authorities’s nod to Trump’s plan got here because the president refused to again down from the proposal that has attracted widespread skepticism and even derision from critics and allies alike.
Trump doubled down on the plan and mentioned the U.S. would take management of Gaza from Israel and rebuild it in grand type, as soon as it had been emptied of its Palestinian residents.
“The Palestinians … would have already been resettled in far safer and more beautiful communities, with new and modern homes, in the region,” Trump posted on his social media website. “They would actually have a chance to be happy, safe, and free.”
US President Donald Trump, proper, meets with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu within the Oval Workplace of the White Home in Washington, DC, on February 4, 2025. (Picture by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP by way of Getty Photos)
He predicted the outcomes could be a “spectacular development” at no monetary or army price to the U.S., though he didn’t clarify how that may be doable.
“No soldiers by the U.S. would be needed!” Trump added. “Stability for the region would reign!!!”
Egypt, a robust U.S. ally within the area, Thursday got here out firmly towards the plan, which may require it to host some or all the displaced Palestinians.
Cairo warned that an expulsion of Palestinians would destabilize the Mideast and undermine Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel, a cornerstone of stability and American affect for many years.
Saudi Arabia additionally trashed the concept of displacing Palestinians from Gaza, which might violate worldwide legislation banning so-called ethnic cleaning.
Palestinians themselves, in Gaza, the West Financial institution and the diaspora, denounced the proposal. Hamas, the Islamist group that guidelines Gaza, vowed to withstand any expulsion push.
Trump’s shock proposal, which he unveiled at a joint press convention with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, initially referred to as for “permanently” resettling Gaza’s inhabitants in unspecified different nations and for the U.S. to take cost of clearing particles and redeveloping Gaza as a “Riviera of the Middle East.”
Now he appears to be framing the emptying of Gaza as a short lived relocation of Palestinians, a few of whom is likely to be allowed to return to their homeland as soon as the rebuilding is full in a couple of years.
Trump, who has railed towards so-called “forever wars” within the Center East, additionally shortly dominated out utilizing U.S. troops to supervise what could be a large undertaking in one of the unstable locations on earth.
Initially Printed: February 6, 2025 at 12:20 PM EST
