President Donald Trump welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House on Tuesday, the first foreign leader to visit in his second term, by floating the idea that the United States should take ownership of the Gaza Strip and permanently displace all Palestinians living there.
After describing the Gaza Strip as a hellish environment, Trump told reporters that he wants to expel “all” Palestinians from Gaza — not just during a period of reconstruction following the Israel–Hamas war, but permanently. Trump suggested that current residents of Gaza can instead “occupy all of a beautiful area with homes and safety, and they can live out their lives in peace and harmony, instead of having to go back and do it again.”
In recent days, Trump had proposed plans to temporarily relocate Palestinians living in Gaza to neighboring countries of Egypt and Jordan, which were rejected by those nation’s leaders.
Along with the cleansing of Gaza’s Palestinian population, Trump proposed a U.S. takeover of the Strip.
“The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too.”
“The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too,” Trump said during a press conference alongside Netanyahu. “We’ll own it … get rid of the destroyed buildings, level it out, create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area … do something different, just can’t go back, if you go back, it’s gonna end up the same way it has for 100 years.”
As soon as Trump took office, Palestinian experts and advocates warned that he would accelerate and maintain even stronger support for Israel’s annexation of Palestinian land and continued ethnic cleansing, especially as Trump began to cast his eye on the rebuilding of Gaza. Members of Netanyahu’s far-right cabinet have long expressed desire for Israelis to reoccupy Gaza and to build new settlements there. Trump has previously described Gaza as a potential development site, touting its weather and seaside location.
But since Netanyahu arrived in Washington, D.C., over the weekend, Trump began to express more clearly his plans in more certain and permanent terms.
During the press conference on Tuesday, Trump added that Palestinians “should not go through a process of rebuilding” and suggested that Gaza’s residents “should go to other countries of interest with humanitarian hearts … and build various domains that would be occupied by the 1.8 million Palestinians living in Gaza, ending the death destruction and frankly bad luck.”
Trump did not clarify the specifics of such a plan but said Palestinians could live in “numerous sites” or “one large site,” and that he expected it to be funded by neighboring countries. He claimed he had spoken to other leaders of Middle East countries who “loved the idea.” Trump also said he was open to the idea of using U.S. troops to carry out the plan.
Asked whether Palestinians who leave Gaza would have an opportunity to return after reconstruction is complete, Trump asked: “Why would they want to return? The place has been hell.”
When asked whether his suggestion for Gaza meant he opposed a two-state solution between Palestine and Israel, Trump avoided the question and doubled down on his plan for displacement, calling Gaza a “hellhole,” even before Israel’s recent genocidal war began after October 7, 2023. While both Trump and Netanyahu expressed desire to push for normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia, Saudi leaders have long made it clear that such a relationship would not exist without a viable pathway toward Palestinian statehood.
“By doing what I’m recommending we do, and it’s a very strong recommendation, by doing that, we think we’re going to bring perhaps great peace long beyond this area,” Trump said. He claimed the plan is not meant to benefit only Israel, but all people in the region, including Arabs.
“You have to learn from history,” Trump said. “You can’t keep doing the same mistake over and over again.”
IT’S EVEN WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT.
What we’re seeing right now from Donald Trump is a full-on authoritarian takeover of the U.S. government.
This is not hyperbole.
Court orders are being ignored. MAGA loyalists have been put in charge of the military and federal law enforcement agencies. The Department of Government Efficiency has stripped Congress of its power of the purse. News outlets that challenge Trump have been banished or put under investigation.
Yet far too many are still covering Trump’s assault on democracy like politics as usual, with flattering headlines describing Trump as “unconventional,” “testing the boundaries,” and “aggressively flexing power.”
The Intercept has long covered authoritarian governments, billionaire oligarchs, and backsliding democracies around the world. We understand the challenge we face in Trump and the vital importance of press freedom in defending democracy.
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IT’S BEEN A DEVASTATING year for journalism — the worst in modern U.S. history.
We have a president with utter contempt for truth aggressively using the government’s full powers to dismantle the free press. Corporate news outlets have cowered, becoming accessories in Trump’s project to create a post-truth America. Right-wing billionaires have pounced, buying up media organizations and rebuilding the information environment to their liking.
In this most perilous moment for democracy, The Intercept is fighting back. But to do so effectively, we need to grow.
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I’M BEN MUESSIG, The Intercept’s editor-in-chief. It’s been a devastating year for journalism — the worst in modern U.S. history.
We have a president with utter contempt for truth aggressively using the government’s full powers to dismantle the free press. Corporate news outlets have cowered, becoming accessories in Trump’s project to create a post-truth America. Right-wing billionaires have pounced, buying up media organizations and rebuilding the information environment to their liking.
In this most perilous moment for democracy, The Intercept is fighting back. But to do so effectively, we need to grow.
That’s where you come in. Will you help us expand our reporting capacity in time to hit the ground running in 2026?
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