US President Donald Trump said in comments aired on Monday that Palestinians who leave the besieged Gaza Strip under his widely-panned ownership plan for the coastal enclave will not be allowed to return.
“We’ll build safe communities a little bit away from where they are, where all of this danger is. In the meantime, I would own this. Think of it as a real estate development for the future, it would be a beautiful piece of land,” Trump told Fox News.
Asked directly by the interviewer if Palestinians would “have the right to return,” Trump replied flatly, “No, they wouldn’t, because they’re going to have much better housing.”
In other words, he explained, he was talking about building a permanent place for the Palestinians. “Because if they have to return now, it will be years before you could ever… it’s not habitable. It will be years before it could happen. I’m talking about starting to build and I think I could make a deal with Jordan, I think I could make a deal with Egypt, you know, we give them billions and billions of dollars a year.”
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Trump rolled out his proposal in the midst of an ongoing ceasefire that has halted Israel’s war on Gaza after 15 months. His plan to take ownership of Gaza has been rejected roundly around the world, but Trump insists that he will see it through, claiming repeatedly that he can force Egypt and Jordan to accept Palestinian refugees, a claim that they have rebuffed publicly, as have the Palestinians. Jordan’s King Abdullah is slated to visit the White House this week.
Trump’s plan shares strong similarities to one put forward publicly by his son-in-law Jared Kushner in March 2024, when the president’s one-time advisor lauded the Palestinian territory’s “very valuable” Mediterranean seafront property.
“Gaza’s waterfront property could be very valuable if people would focus on building up livelihoods,” Kushner said during an interview at Harvard University. “It’s a little bit of an unfortunate situation there, but I think from Israel’s perspective I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up.”
Israel’s war on Gaza has left the besieged enclave in ruins, with half of its housing damaged or destroyed and nearly two million people displaced amid severe shortages of sanitation, medical supplies, food and clean water. At least 48,000 Palestinians have been killed, with 112,000 wounded.
In November, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, citing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. Separately, Israel faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice.
All refugees have a legitimate right under international law to return to their land. The Palestinians are no exception. This right is an individual right, and cannot be negotiated away en masse.
UN Special Rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, has described Trump’s plan as, “utter nonsense” and an “international crime”, as well as being “irresponsible and immoral.”
-MEMO
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