President Trump’s declaration on Tuesday evening that the United States could “take over” the Gaza Strip and that its Palestinian population could be permanently displaced was immediately criticized in the Middle East and beyond.
At a joint White House news conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, Mr. Trump said, “The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it, too.” He said the enclave, which has been devastated by more than 15 months of war between Israel and Hamas, could be redeveloped and turned into “the Riviera of the Middle East.”
Riyad Mansour, the leader of the Palestinian delegation to the United Nations, said on social media that instead of being relocated to other countries, the Palestinians in Gaza should be allowed to reclaim what were once Palestinian homes in Israel.
“For those who want to send” Gazans “to a happy ‘nice place,’” Mr. Mansour said, using language that Mr. Trump had employed, “let them go back, you know, to their original homes inside Israel. There are nice places there, and they will be happy to return to these places.”
He added that Palestinians wanted to rebuild Gaza themselves, and he urged world leaders to respect their wishes.
The foreign ministry of Saudi Arabia issued a statement that did not directly refer to Mr. Trump’s remarks, though the timing suggested that it was a response to his proposal. The ministry said it was reaffirming its “complete rejection of any infringement on the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, whether through Israeli settlement policies, annexation of Palestinian lands or attempts to displace the Palestinian people from their land.”
“The duty of the international community today is to work to alleviate the severe human suffering that has been inflicted upon the Palestinian people, who will remain committed to their land and will not move from it,” the ministry said.
In the United States, Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, said that Mr. Trump’s proposal — which flies in the face of decades of debate over how to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — was meant to distract people from Elon Musk’s sweeping attempts to downsize the U.S. government on Mr. Trump’s behalf.
“I have news for you — we aren’t taking over Gaza,” Mr. Murphy said on social media. “But the media and the chattering class will focus on it for a few days and Trump will have succeeded in distracting everyone from the real story — the billionaires seizing government to steal from regular people.”
Another Democratic senator, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, called Mr. Trump’s proposal “ethnic cleansing by another name,” adding, “This declaration will give ammunition to Iran and other adversaries while undermining our Arab partners in the region.”
A former Republican congressman from Michigan, Justin Amash, whose family is of Palestinian origin, also compared Mr. Trump’s proposal to ethnic cleansing. “If the United States deploys troops to forcibly remove Muslims and Christians — like my cousins — from Gaza, then not only will the U.S. be mired in another reckless occupation but it will also be guilty of the crime of ethnic cleansing,” he said. “No American of good conscience should stand for this.”
On Saturday, a broad group of Arab nations had rejected an earlier suggestion from Mr. Trump that Gazans to be moved to Egypt and Jordan — a proposal that did not mention the United States taking over the enclave. In a joint statement, the countries said that such a plan would risk further expanding the conflict in the Middle East.
The statement, signed by officials from Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries, said that any plan encouraging the “transfer or uprooting of Palestinians from their land” would threaten stability in the region and “undermine the chances of peace and coexistence among its people.”
Nihad Awad, the national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, rejected Mr. Trump’s Tuesday proposal in a statement, saying that forcible expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza would spark conflict, mar the United States’ reputation and render international law meaningless. (When asked on Tuesday whether he would force Palestinians to leave, Mr. Trump said, “I don’t think they’re going to tell me no.”)
“Gaza belongs to the Palestinian people, not the United States, and President Trump’s call to displace Palestinians from their land either temporarily or permanently is an absolute non-starter,” Mr. Awad said in his statement. “Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the entire Muslim world have made it clear that this delusional idea is unacceptable.”
Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who argues that Israel should annex Palestinian territories, appeared to delight in Mr. Trump’s proposal. In a social media post after Mr. Trump’s remarks, he thanked the president in Hebrew without specifying what he was thanking him for, and he said, “Even better and even better.”
In English, next to emojis of the Israeli and American flags, Mr. Smotrich added, “Together, we will make the world great again.”
Liam Stack contributed reporting.
