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WASHINGTON — President Trump “expects” the countries neighboring the Gaza Strip to “step up” and accept Palestinians amid his push to take over the territory, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday.
The Post had asked Leavitt what Trump was willing to offer the neighboring Arab countries in return for accepting the over 2 million people currently residing in the war-torn territory.
“I think the president has made it clear that he expects these nations in the region to step up and to accept Palestinian refugees who are temporarily relocated for the rebuilding of Gaza,” Leavitt responded, noting that she won’t “get ahead” of Trump’s negotiations.
The president announced his policy plan of taking over the Gaza Strip, relocating its residents and rebuilding the territory to create a “Riviera of the Middle East” Tuesday night during a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
He said he hoped neighboring countries like Jordan or Egypt would take them in, and told reporters, “They won’t tell me no. I want to remove all the residents of Gaza … it will happen.”
Trump also didn’t rule out putting US troops on the ground to take the landmass, but Leavitt emphasized Wednesday he did not “commit” to doing so.
The Gaza Strip is surrounded by Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea, and the Trump administration has said they hope Egypt and Jordan will be the ones to take them in.
But there has already been pushback. The Egyptian foreign ministry responded that it would prefer the Palestinian Authority to “assume its responsibilities in the Gaza Strip,” and Jordan’s King Abdullah II expressed “rejection of any attempts to annex land and displace the Palestinians.”
“It’s never worked,” Trump said of the attempt to have Gaza govern itself. “And I feel very differently about Gaza than a lot of people. I think they should get a good, fresh, beautiful piece of land, and we get some people to put up the money to build it and make it nice and make it habitable and enjoyable.”
Trump had been weighing the policy for some time, and Netanyahu was made aware of the plan before his announcement, Leavitt told The Post.
The press secretary stressed that the current conditions of Gaza — after being at war with Israel for over one year after the Hamas invasion in Oct. 7, 2023 — are “uninhabitable.”
Other countries in the region have not responded favorably to Trump’s plan to relocate the millions living in the Gaza Strip. Notably, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Saudi Arabia, one of Trump’s key allies in the region, proclaimed an “unequivocal rejection” on the infringement on the rights of Palestinian people.
Leavitt said Trump is expected to meet with Jordan’s King Abdullah II next week and has already spoken to the leaders of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.
