President Trump on Thursday defended his proposal for the United States to take charge of postwar Gaza and resettle its Palestinian residents, but stressed that he would not deploy U.S. troops to the enclave, as Israel’s defense minister announced that he had ordered the military to draft a plan to allow people to voluntarily leave.
The developments add to a swirl of confusion over the proposal by Mr. Trump to “take over” the Gaza Strip and for the roughly two million Palestinians living there to move elsewhere. The forced deportation or transfer of a civilian population is a violation of international humanitarian law, a war crime and a crime against humanity, experts say. Mr. Trump’s plan has already provoked furious opposition around the world, with some critics likening it to ethnic cleansing.
It is far from clear whether and how the proposal would be carried out, and Mr. Trump’s comments did not resolve some of the biggest questions about it, including where Israeli and American authorities hoped Gazans would go, how many people they imagined would actually leave willingly and who would govern and secure the enclave.
Mr. Trump’s proposal was not vetted by the president’s top advisers and some of Mr. Trump’s aides had sought to soften the president’s ideas on Wednesday evening. But in an early morning social media post, Mr. Trump doubled down, saying that the United States and its partners were prepared to build “one of the greatest and most spectacular developments” on the planet in Gaza once Israel ceded control there.
“The Gaza Strip would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social, adding that Palestinians “would have already been resettled in far safer and more beautiful communities, with new and modern homes, in the region.”