Trump says won’t impose Gaza takeover plan but ‘recommend it’
The US president has said in a radio interview with Fox News that he was “a little bit surprised” that Jordan and Egypt have voiced opposition to his plan to “take over” Gaza and displace Palestinians.
“I’ll tell you, the way to do it is my plan – I think that’s the plan that really works,” Trump said.
“But I’m not forcing it, I’m just going to sit back and recommend it. “And then the US would own the site, there’d be no Hamas, and there’d be development and you’d start all over again with a clean plate.”
Here’s more of what the US president told Fox News:
- “You know where [Netanyahu] stands; he would like to go in. He just is so angry and he should be … He’s very angry. He’s a very angry man at what happened, especially with what happened yesterday with these kids … They were babies.”
- Asked whether he would be fine either way, if Netanyahu prioritises freeing the remaining Gaza captives or “finishing off” Hamas, Trump says: “I am. I really am.”
- “We pay Jordan and Egypt billions of dollars a year, and I was a little surprised they’d say that. But they did,” he says, of the two Arab countries’ opposition to his Gaza plan.
- Trump says the Gaza Strip is “essentially levelled now” and “not livable”.
- “It’s a great location. I don’t know why Israel ever gave that up,” he says, referring to Israel’s decision to withdraw its illegal settlements from the enclave, which it still occupies.
Trump doubles down on view that Palestinians want to leave Gaza
Reporting from Washington, DC, Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett says that despite Trump’s recent remarks on his Gaza takeover plan, “the bottom line is that the US believes there is no future for Hamas” in the enclave.
The US president also continues to claim “that the residents of Gaza don’t want to live there; that given the choice, they would rather live somewhere else, and if they had the option, they would leave”, Halkett reported.
But Palestinians in Gaza have repeatedly rejected Trump’s proposal.
Riyadh talks contribute to Trump’s tone change
That’s according to Gamal Bayoumi, the former Egyptian deputy foreign affairs minister to the EU.
As we’ve been reporting throughout the day, the leaders of several Arab countries met earlier in Saudi Arabia to discuss a counterproposal to Trump’s push to “take over” Gaza.
Speaking to Al Jazeera from Cairo, Bayoumi said Trump has appeared “inexperienced concerning international law” and the Middle East. “He’s trying from time to time to [float] a new balloon to see what is the reaction,” he said, stressing that Arab leaders have rejected Trump’s Gaza takeover plan.
“This is something that even the closest allies of [the US], Germany and France, refused. It has no logic … to ask the Palestinians to leave their own country,” Bayoumi said.
China will work to ‘correct historical injustice’, restore peace: Top diplomat
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi made the pledge during talks with his Saudi counterpart Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud at the G20 summit in Johannesburg, South Africa.
“With the Palestinian issue at the core of the Middle East issue, China will continue to stand firmly with Arab brothers and make efforts to correct historical injustice thoroughly, and restore lasting peace in the region at an early date,” Wang told the Saudi foreign minister, according to a statement.
Wang also lauded Saudi Arabia’s “active mediation on hot issues and is pleased to see Saudi Arabia play a constructive role in regional peace and stability”, the statement said, in an apparent reference to Riyadh hosting talks between the US and Russia to end the war in Ukraine.
