Trump says Palestinians would not have a right to return to Gaza

US President Donald Trump said Palestinians would not have the right of return to the Gaza Strip under his proposal to redevelop the enclave, contradicting his own officials who had suggested Gazans would only be relocated temporarily.

In an excerpt of a Fox News interview released on Monday, Trump added that he thought he could make a deal with Jordan and Egypt to take the displaced Palestinians, saying the U.S. gives the two countries “billions and billions of dollars a year.”

Asked if Palestinians would have the right to return to Gaza, Trump told Fox News: “No, they wouldn’t because they’re going to have much better housing.”

“I’m talking about building a permanent place for them,” he said, adding it would take years for Gaza to be habitable again.

In a shock announcement on Feb. 4 after meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington, Trump proposed resettling Gaza’s 2.2 million Palestinians and the US taking control of the seaside enclave, redeveloping it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”

Residents of Gaza have broadly rejected any suggestion of moving from the strip, as has the Palestinian Authority and the militant group Hamas that administers Gaza.

Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said Trump’s statement that Palestinians would not be able to return to Gaza was “irresponsible.”

“We affirm that such plans are capable of igniting the region,” he told Reuters on Monday.

Netanyahu, who praised the proposal, suggested Palestinians would be allowed to return. “They can leave, they can then come back, they can relocate and come back. But you have to rebuild Gaza,” he said the day after Trump’s announcement.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who will depart later this week for his first visit to the Middle East in the job, said on Thursday that Palestinians would have to “live somewhere else in the interim,” during reconstruction, although he declined to explicitly rule out their permanent displacement.

The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the disparity between Rubio and Trump’s most recent remarks on the plan.

Trump’s comments come as a fragile ceasefire reached last month between Israel and Hamas is at risk of collapse after Hamas announced on Monday it would stop releasing Israeli hostages over alleged Israeli violations of the agreement.

Israel’s Arab neighbors, including Egypt and Jordan, have said any plan to transfer Palestinians from their land would destabilise the region.

Rubio met Egypt’s Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty in Washington on Monday. Egypt’s foreign ministry said Abdelatty told Rubio that Arab countries support Palestinians in rejecting Trump’s plan. Cairo fears Palestinians could be forced across Egypt’s border with Gaza.

Trump is set to host Jordan’s King Abdullah at the White House on Tuesday.

Trump said in the Fox News interview that between two and six communities could be built for the Palestinians “a little bit away from where they are, where all of this danger is.”

“I would own this. Think of it as a real estate development for the future. It would be a beautiful piece of land. No big money spent,” he told Fox.