Trump doubles down on Gaza takeover plans saying ‘we’ll make it exciting’
President Donald Trump echoed his previous comments that Gaza could be emptied of residents, controlled by the US and redeveloped as a tourist area, claiming it would make the place ‘exciting’.
Today Mr Trump hosted Jordan’s King Abdullah II at the White House on Tuesday and reiterated his ‘plan’ to takeover the Gaza Strip.
Mr Trump said the United States could control Gaza ‘under the US authority’, without elaborating what that was.
‘We’re not going to buy anything. We’re going to have it… and we’ll make it exciting.’
The pair met in the Oval Office, where Mr Trump suggested he would not withhold US aid to Jordan or countries such as Egypt and other Arab nations if they do not agree to dramatically increase the number of people from Gaza they take in.
That contradicted the Republican president previously suggesting that holding back aid was a possibility.
King Abdullah was asked repeatedly about Mr Trump’s audacious plan to remake the Middle East but did not comment on it.
‘I can tell you about real estate. They’re going to be in love with it,’ Mr Trump, who built a New York real estate empire that catapulted him to fame, said of Gaza’s residents, while also insisting that he would not be involved in development.
Mr Trump has repeatedly proposed the US take control of Gaza and turn it into ‘the Riviera of the Middle East’, with Palestinians in the war-torn territory pushed into neighbouring nations with no right of return to their homes.
Jordan is home to more than two million Palestinians and, along with other Arab states, has flatly rejected Mr Trump’s plan to relocate civilians from Gaza.
Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, said last week that his country’s opposition to Mr Trump’s idea was ‘firm and unwavering’.
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