Proposed US Gaza Strip takeover

President Donald John Trump of the United States has put up a plan to annex the Gaza Strip and turn it into a Riviera of the Middle East.

The reason behind the idea is to prevent the Gaza Strip from being used again as an attack-launching ground by Hamas, a Palestine militant group, against Israel in the future.

While meeting the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, at the White House on February 4 2025, President Trump told a press conference that the US would “takeover the Gaza Strip and rebuild it as a tourism and job providing area”.

“US will take the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it too.  We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site.
“Level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings, level it up, create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area.

“Do a real job. Do something different. Just can’t go back. If you go back, it’s going to end up a different way it has for 100 years.
“I see it bring great stability to that part of the Middle East and maybe, the entire Middle East.”

President Trump said that everybody I’ve spoken to – this was not a decision made lightly – everybody I have spoken to loved the idea of the United States owning that piece of land”.
He added: “Developing and building thousands of jobs with something that would be magnificent in a magnificent area that nobody will know. Nobody can look because all they see is death and destruction and rubble.”
President Trump explained why his plan for Gaza should be accepted and implemented.

“In our meeting today, the Prime Minister and I foresee the future, discussing how we can work together to ensure Hamas is eliminated and ultimately restore peace to a very troubled region.
“I’ve been troubled, but what’s happened in the last four years has not been good.”

According to the US President, the Gaza Strip had become “a symbol of death and destruction for so many decades and so bad for the people anywhere near it.
“It should not go through a process of rebuilding and occupation by the same people that have really stood there and fought for it and lived there and died there and lived a miserable existence there.”

In his response to the plan, Premier Netanyahu said: “Your willingness to puncher conversational thinking that has failed time and time and time again; your willingness to think outside the box with fresh ideas will help us achieve all these goals.
“And I have seen you do this many times. You cut to the chase. You see things others refuse to see. You say things others refuse to say.
“And after the jaws dropped, people scratched their heads and they say, 'you know, he’s right.”

On why he applauded President Trump’s idea about taking over Gaza and rebuilding it, Premier Netanyahu said: “Israel’s victory will be America’s victory. We will not only win the war together; we will win the peace. With your leadership, Mr President and our partnership, I believe that we will forge a brilliant future for a region and bring our great alliance to even greater heights.”

For the resettlement of the people of Gaza elsewhere, the American President has asked Egypt and Jordan to take the remaining Gaza population into their countries.
Premier Netanyahu, in supporting the American resettlement plan, has requested that nations that had criticised Israel over the Israeli-Hamas conflict assist in the evacuation of the Gaza people by accepting them as refugees.

The Trump administration has to convince Arab nations to support the plan.
 Some Arab nations that backed the Abraham Family Accords during the first Trump administration had insisted that the Accords must be accompanied by a two-nation settlement of the Israel-Palestine Middle East crisis.                   

The Abraham Accords are bilateral agreements between Israel and some Arab nations on the normalisation of diplomatic relations with Israel.  Arab-nation signatories were Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Sudan.                  
Some other Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, were negotiating with Israel to become signatories before the October 2023 attack.
The two-nation solution to the Middle East crisis was part of an arrangement under the Oslo Accords signed in 1993 that ended the crisis and recommended the creation of a Palestinian state.
Its implementation began with the establishment of a Palestinian administration in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
The semblance of a Palestinian state started to take form, and Palestine was accorded observer status in the United Nations General Assembly. Some countries even recognised Palestine as a nation state.
The Oslo Accords were directed at promoting a peace plan that would lead to self-rule for the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza.

Under the accords, Israel recognised the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as the representative of the Palestinians and the PLO agreed to stop terrorist activities against Israel and recognised Israel as a state.

A key part of the accords was that a Palestinian authority should be set up to govern the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Implementation of the other parts of the accords collapsed after the resumption of Palestinian hostilities against Israel.
Led mostly by Hamas, the conflict took the form of attacks by Hamas, the militant wing of a political movement for the liberation of Palestine.

The conflict culminated in the October 2023 Hamas attack on southern Israel, killing 1,200 Israelis and taking 250 hostages.
Implementation of the ongoing ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas has been the outcome of the military response by Israel to that unexpected Hamas attack.

An estimated 46,600 Palestinian people had died in Israeli attacks before the ongoing ceasefire agreement.

The Gaza Strip is 25 miles or 45 kilometers long and six miles or 10 kilometers wide.
It had a population of 2.7 million people before the October 2023 conflict.
Some 160,000 had left the area; 55,000 are believed to have died.

The idea behind President Trump’s proposed take-over and evacuation of Gaza is to rebuild the area into a business and tourism enclave without the militant Palestinians and their supporters – to avoid future wars and deaths.                 

Part of the plan is, therefore, good; part is not that good, and part is bad.
For example, the evacuation idea would dispossess the Palestinians of their land and make them refugees of other countries.

 The US President would find it difficult to sell the plan, in its present form, to the majority of Arab leaders.  President Trump’s government must review and make it acceptable to the Arab nations through negotiations. 
 
Email: therson.cofie@yahoo.com