File photo: Hamas fighters take part in the funeral ceremony of Marwan Issa, a top Hamas commander killed in March 2024, inside a sports stadium in the war-devastated Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.AFP
On Sunday, Trump repeated his proposal to take control of the Gaza Strip.
“I’m committed to buying and owning Gaza. As far as us rebuilding it, we may give it to other states in the Middle East to build sections of it,” he told reporters onboard Air Force One as he travelled to the Super Bowl.
"Gaza is not a piece of real estate to be bought and sold — it is an inseparable part of our occupied Palestinian land,” Hamas responded in a statement.
The Palestinian resistance group considered approaching the Palestinian cause with a real estate trader’s mindset as a recipe for failure.
"Our people will thwart all plans for displacement and forced migration,” the statement read.
"Gaza belongs to its people, and they will not leave except to return to their cities and villages occupied in 1948,” it added.
On Monday, Hamas leader Khalil Al-Hayya said Trump’s plans for Gaza were “doomed.”
“We will bring them down as we brought down the projects before them,” he stated during the commemoration of the 46th anniversary of the Iranian revolution in Tehran.
Hamas has previously said Trump’s plan would pour “oil on fire” in the region.
Last week, Trump sparked global outrage by proposing that the United States take control of Gaza and permanently displace its population.
Upon his return to Israel from the United States, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamen Netanyahu reiterated his support for Trump's proposal during a cabinet meeting.
"President Trump came with a completely different, much better vision for Israel — a revolutionary, creative approach that we are currently discussing," Netanyahu said.
According to Reuters, Israeli President Isaac Herzog said Trump was set to meet with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and possibly Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, giving no dates for the talks.
Herzog said this when asked about Trump's colonialist-style plans for the strip in an interview with American journalist Maria Bartiromo on Fox News.
“President Trump is due to meet with major Arab leaders, first and foremost the king of Jordan, the president of Egypt, and I think also the crown prince of Saudi Arabia," he said.
However, he did not provide any details about these meetings.
"These are partners that must be listened to, they must be discussed with. We have to honour their feelings as well and see how we build a plan that is sustainable for the future," Herzog added.
Second Nakba
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan again rejected the US proposal to displace Palestinians from Gaza.
“We do not consider the proposal to exile the Palestinians from the lands they have lived in for thousands of years as something to be taken seriously,” Erdogan said during a visit to Malaysia on Monday.
“No one has the power to force the Palestinian people to experience a second Nakba,” he added, referring to the enforced exodus of Palestinians during the 1948 war.
Erdogan, who is on a four-day tour to Malaysia, Indonesia, and Pakistan, highlighted the severe destruction in Gaza.
He emphasized that Netanyahu’s government should look for funds to “compensate” for what he said was damage amounting to $100 billion “instead of looking for a place for the people of Gaza.”
Earlier on Sunday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz described Trump’s proposal about the war-ravaged Palestinian territory as "a scandal.”
Scholz, speaking in a pre-election TV debate, said the "relocation of a population is unacceptable and against international law.”
Short link: