Trump's suggestion came at a White House news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who looked pleased as the president detailed a plan to build new settlements for Palestinians outside the Gaza Strip, and for the US to take "ownership" in redeveloping the war-torn territory into "the Riviera of the Middle East."
"The US 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."
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said the president was "thinking outside the box with fresh ideas". (AP PHOTO)
Netanyahu, whose military had engaged in more than a year of fierce fighting with Hamas militants in Gaza, said Trump was "thinking outside the box with fresh ideas" and was "showing willingness to puncture conventional thinking."
The comments came amid a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, during which the militant group has been turning over hostages in exchange for the release of prisoners held by Israel.
Egypt, Jordan and other American allies in the Middle East have already rejected the idea of relocating more than 2 million Palestinians from Gaza elsewhere in the region.
Saudi Arabia, an important American ally, weighed in quickly on Trump's expanded idea to take over the Gaza Strip in a sharply worded statement, noting that its long call for an independent Palestinian state was a "firm, steadfast and unwavering position."
Trump said the US could 'level' Gaza's destroyed buildings and build 'a Riviera of the Middle East'. (AP PHOTO)
"The kingdom of Saudi Arabia also stresses what it had previously announced regarding its absolute rejection of infringement on the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, whether through Israeli settlement policies, annexation of Palestinian lands or efforts to displace the Palestinian people from their land," the statement said.
Hamas, which sparked the war with its October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, said Trump's proposal was a "recipe for creating chaos and tension in the region."
"Instead of holding the Zionist occupation accountable for the crime of genocide and displacement, it is being rewarded, not punished," the militant group said in a statement.
"Gaza will not allow such plans to pass," Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri warned. (AP PHOTO)
In its attack on Israel, Hamas killed some 1,200 people, primarily civilians, and took about 250 hostages.
Israel's ensuing air and ground war has killed over 47,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to local health authorities who do not say how many of the dead were fighters. The war has left large parts of several cities in ruins and displaced around 90 per cent of Gaza's population of 2.3 million people.
Trump has already made waves — and upset longtime allies — suggesting the purchase of Greenland, the annexation of Canada and the possible takeover of the Panama Canal. It was not immediately clear whether the idea of taking over the Gaza Strip was a well thought out plan, or an opening gambit in negotiations.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters in Canberra, Australia, that his country has long supported a two-state solution in the Middle East and that nothing had changed.
"Australia's position is the same as it was this morning, as it was last year, as it was 10 years ago," he said.
New Zealand's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that its "long-standing support for a two-state solution is on the record" and added that it, too, "won't be commenting on every proposal that is put forward."
In the US, opposition politicians quickly rejected Trump's idea, with Democratic Senator Chris Coons calling his comments "offensive and insane and dangerous and foolish."
The idea "risks the rest of the world thinking that we are an unbalanced and unreliable partner because our president makes insane proposals," Coons said, noting the irony of the proposal coming shortly after Trump had moved to dismantle the US Agency for International Development.
"Why on earth would we abandon decades of well-established humanitarian programs around the world, and now launch into one of the world's greatest humanitarian challenges?" Coons said.
Democrat Rashida Tlaib, a Palestinian American member of Congress from Michigan, accused Trump in a social media post of "openly calling for ethnic cleansing" with the idea of resettling Gaza's entire population.
Agencies
