US President Donald Trump said on Thursday Israel would hand over Gaza to the US after the fighting was over and the enclave’s population was already resettled elsewhere, which he said meant no US troops would be needed on the ground.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday that Gaza currently was “not habitable” due to dangers such as unexploded weapons and that people would have to live elsewhere while the area was rebuilt.
Israel has told the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) that it is disengaging from the body, alleging it was biased, said Foreign Minister Gideon Saar on Thursday.
Trump says Israel would hand over Gaza to US after fighting ends
US President Donald Trump said on Thursday Israel would hand over Gaza to the US after the fighting was over and the enclave’s population was already resettled elsewhere, which he said meant no US troops would be needed on the ground.
A day after worldwide condemnation of Trump’s announcement that he aimed to take over and develop the Gaza Strip into the “Riviera of the Middle East”, Israel ordered its army to prepare to allow the “voluntary departure” of Gaza Palestinians.
Trump, who had previously declined to rule out deploying US troops to the small coastal territory, clarified his idea in comments on his Truth Social web platform.
“The Gaza Strip would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting,” he said. Palestinians “would have already been resettled in far safer and more beautiful communities, with new and modern homes, in the region”. He added: “No soldiers by the U.S. would be needed!”
Earlier, amid a tide of support in Israel for what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Trump’s “remarkable” proposal, Defense Minister Israel Katz said he had ordered the army to prepare a plan to allow Gaza residents who wished to leave to exit the enclave voluntarily.
“I welcome President Trump’s bold plan. Gaza residents should be allowed the freedom to leave and emigrate, as is the norm around the world,” said Katz on X.
He said his plan would include exit options via land crossings, as well as special arrangements for departure by sea and air.
Trump’s unexpected announcement on Tuesday, which sparked anger around the Middle East, came as Israel and Hamas were expected to begin talks in Doha on the second stage of a ceasefire deal for Gaza, intended to open the way for a full withdrawal of Israeli forces and an end to the war.
Regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia rebuffed the proposal outright and Jordan’s King Abdullah, who will meet Trump at the White House next week, said on Wednesday he rejected any attempts to annex land and displace Palestinians.
Egypt also weighed in, saying it would not be part of any proposal to displace Palestinians from neighbouring Gaza, where residents reacted with fury to the suggestion.
“We will not sell our land for you, real estate developer. We are hungry, homeless, and desperate but we are not collaborators,” said Abdel Ghani, a father of four living with his family in the ruins of their Gaza City home. “If [Trump] wants to help, let him come and rebuild for us here.”
What effect Trump’s shock proposal may have on the ceasefire talks remains unclear. Only 13 of a group of 33 Israeli hostages due for release in the first phase have so far been returned, with three more due to come out on Saturday. Five Thai hostages have also been released.
Israel’s military campaign killed tens of thousands of people after Hamas’ October 7, 2023 cross-border attack on Israel touched off the war, and has forced Palestinians to repeatedly move around within Gaza in search of safety.
But many say they will never leave the enclave because they fear permanent displacement, like the “Nakba”, or catastrophe, when hundreds of thousands were dispossessed from their homes in the war at the birth of the state of Israel in 1948.
Katz said countries that have opposed Israel’s military operations in Gaza should take in the Palestinians.
“Countries like Spain, Ireland, Norway, and others, which have levelled accusations and false claims against Israel over its actions in Gaza, are legally obligated to allow any Gaza resident to enter their territories,” he said.
Rubio says Gazans will have to relocate during rebuilding
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday that Gaza currently was “not habitable” due to dangers such as unexploded weapons and that people would have to live elsewhere while the area was rebuilt.
Rubio, answering a reporter’s question during a visit to the Dominican Republic, encouraged other countries to step forward and offer to help rebuild Gaza, but did not say whether Palestinians would be able to return to the area under a proposal by Trump to take over and develop the Gaza Strip.
“I think that’s just a realistic reality, that in order to fix a place like that, people are going to have to live somewhere else in the interim,” said Rubio.
Israel to stop engagement with UN Human Rights Council
Israel has told the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) that it is disengaging from the body, alleging it was biased, said Foreign Minister Gideon Saar on Thursday.
Council members have frequently raised allegations of Israeli human rights violations in the Gaza war, while a UN inquiry it set up found last year that the immense scale of killings amounted to a crime against humanity.
Israel rejected the finding and says it takes care to avoid civilian casualties. It has long criticised the Geneva-based body and has disengaged in the past.
In a letter to UNHRC President Jorg Lauber, Saar said: “The decision was reached in light of the ongoing and unrelenting institutional bias against Israel in the Human Rights Council, which has been persistent since its inception in 2006.”
The US, Israel’s close ally, withdrew from the council on Tuesday.
The Israeli move drew disapproval from a UN rights expert, although Israel is not one of the council’s 47 voting members and did not always attend meetings.
While the council has no legally binding power, its debates carry political weight and scrutiny can raise global pressure on governments to change course.
Russia says Trump’s remarks on Gaza fuel Middle East tension
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that Trump’s remarks about resettling the Palestinians from Gaza and establishing US ownership of the Strip were shocking and would ramp up tension in the Middle East.
Trump said on Thursday that Israel would hand over Gaza to the US after the fighting was over and the enclave’s population was already resettled elsewhere, which he said meant no US troops would be needed on the ground.
“The main thing now is to provide the necessary humanitarian assistance to all those in need,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova told reporters. “We believe that the main task today is to ensure the implementation of agreements between Israel and Hamas.
“Any populist, frivolous, or shocking arguments about any other palliative measures at the present stage are counterproductive and do not contribute to solving the problem, but only fuel tension in the region and to all the already extremely aggravated problems,” Zakharova said of Trump’s remarks.
Trump to impose sanctions on International Criminal Court
Trump will sign an executive order on Thursday to sanction the International Criminal Court (ICC) for targeting the US and its allies, such as Israel, said a White House official.
The order would place financial and visa sanctions on individuals and their family members who assist in ICC investigations of US citizens or US allies, said the official.
The move by Trump comes after Senate Democrats last week blocked a Republican-led effort to sanction the ICC in protest at its arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defence minister over Israel’s campaign in Gaza. Netanyahu is currently visiting Washington.
The court has taken measures to shield staff from possible US sanctions, paying salaries three months in advance, as it braced for financial restrictions that could cripple the war crimes tribunal, sources told Reuters last month.
In December, the court’s president, Judge Tomoko Akane, warned that sanctions would “rapidly undermine the court’s operations in all situations and cases, and jeopardise its very existence”.
This is the second time the court has faced US retaliation as a result of its work. During the first Trump administration in 2020, Washington imposed sanctions on then-prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and one of her top aides over the ICC’s investigation into alleged war crimes by US troops in Afghanistan.
The 125-member ICC is a permanent court that can prosecute individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and the crime of aggression against the territory of member states or by their nationals. The US, China, Russia and Israel are not members.
Arab American, Muslim leaders decry Trump comments on Gaza
US Arab American and Muslim leaders, including some who supported Trump in the 2024 election, criticised the president’s proposal for the US to take over Gaza and resettle Palestinians, but some of them said they still believed he was the best option for lasting peace in the region.
The leaders largely dismissed Trump’s comments as unrealistic bluster, though one warned that the president and his Republican Party risked losing support from the community.
“We believe that his ideas, as well-intentioned as they might be, rubbed a lot of people the wrong way,” Bishara Bahbah, who founded Arab Americans for Trump and helped rally support for him in Michigan and other battleground states, told Reuters.
“We’re opposed to any transfer of Palestinians, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, out of their homeland.”
Bahbah said he still supported Trump, seeing him as the best option to avoid conflict in Gaza. He said his organisation changed its name to Arab Americans for Peace two days ago, reflecting its shift in focus following Trump’s election.
The move by Arab Americans and Muslims away from the Democratic Party probably factored into Trump’s victory, with the largest impact in the swing state of Michigan, home to the country’s biggest population of Arabs, Muslims and Palestinians.
Many in the community voted against then-Vice President Kamala Harris to protest against the Biden administration’s support of Israel’s war on Gaza in retaliation for the 7 October 2023 attacks. Some also credit Trump with orchestrating a ceasefire, even though it happened before he entered the White House.
A nationwide exit poll conducted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations advocacy group showed that 53% of Muslims voted for Green Party candidate Jill Stein in the 2024 election, with Trump and Harris picking up 21% and 20%, respectively. The poll, which surveyed 1,575 Muslim voters via text message, marked a sharp contrast with 2020, when 69% of Muslim Americans voted for Biden and only 17% went for Trump.
Rabiul Chowdhury, co-founder of Muslims for Trump, said that while he was frustrated that no viable long-term solution for peace and rebuilding was being discussed for Gaza, he did not regret backing Trump.
“Conflating Trump’s rhetoric with the actions of Biden and Harris is not only disingenuous but outright dishonest,” he said, criticising the Biden administration’s supply of weapons and other support for Israel while it bombed Gaza. “If we were to equate Trump’s actions with those of Biden and Harris, the contrast would be undeniable — Trump is the better option.”
Faye Nemer, founder of the Middle East and North African Chamber of Commerce, said Trump’s proposal on Gaza was not consistent with his message to Arab and Muslim Americans during the 2024 campaign and underpinned the party’s growing outreach efforts to the community.
“I feel like this, you know, kind of goes in the opposite direction,” said Nemer. “If the GOP wants to continue capitalising on the momentum that they were able to achieve in this election cycle, you don’t do that by alienating the constituents that supported you, and I feel like that’s what’s happening, unfortunately.”
US envoy to warn Lebanon over Hezbollah’s influence in government
Trump’s envoy was set to deliver a firm message to Lebanese leaders during a visit on Thursday: the US will not tolerate the unchecked influence of Hezbollah and its allies over the formation of a new government.
The message will be that Lebanon faces deeper isolation and economic devastation unless it forms a government committed to reforms, eliminating corruption and curbing the stranglehold of the Iranian-backed Shi’ite group, according to an administration official, a Western diplomat and regional government sources.
The US delegation, led by Morgan Ortagus, deputy special envoy for the Middle East, was to meet newly-elected President Joseph Aoun, Prime Minister-designate Nawaf Salam and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.
Salam was tasked more than three weeks ago with forming a government, in which senior posts are traditionally apportioned among Lebanon’s sectarian communities under a longstanding system of power sharing.
But the US is seeking to curb the influence that Hezbollah will wield over it, in an attempt to capitalise on the pummeling that the group took in its war with Israel last year.
“It’s important for us to set the tone for what we believe a new Lebanon should look like going forward,” said the senior U.S. administration official, while asserting that Washington was not “picking” individual Cabinet members but ensuring Hezbollah has no part in the government.
“There was a war and Hezbollah was defeated and they need to remain defeated,” added the official. “You don’t want somebody corrupt. It’s a new day for Lebanon. Hezbollah was defeated, and the new government needs to match that new reality.” DM
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