WASHINGTON DC: U.S. President Donald Trump says Palestinians living in Gaza now would be moved to an unspecified location outside the territory and have no right to return under his plan for the enclave.
Trump, in an interview with Fox News released Monday, called his plan for the narrow territory along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea a “real estate development for the future.”
“I would own it,” he said, adding that the 2.3 million Palestinians now living in war-ravaged Gaza would be moved to as many as six different sites outside Gaza under a plan that the Arab world, as well as U.S. allies and adversaries alike, have already rejected.
Trump, a billionaire New York real estate magnate before entering politics in 2015, did not say where the Palestinians would be relocated. But when asked by Fox anchor Bret Baier if they would be allowed to return home to Gaza, Trump said, “No, they wouldn’t, because they’re going to have much better housing.”
“In other words, I’m talking about building a permanent place for them because if they have to return now, it’ll be years before you could ever — it’s not habitable,” Trump said of Gaza, decimated by 15 months of fighting between Israel and Hamas, although currently in the middle of a six-week ceasefire.
Trump first disclosed his surprising Gaza plan standing alongside visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House last week. He has suggested that Egypt and Jordan take in the Palestinians but both countries have rejected the idea.
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