The February 5 White House meeting between President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was preceded by weeks of speculation, but no one predicted his call to remove all residents of Gaza and for the United States to “take over” the territory.
Netanyahu welcomed the initiative. “It was a historic meeting and a huge turning point for Israel’s future. In that meeting he also brought up his idea for Gaza, for the day after Hamas, and I think we ought to listen very closely to this original idea, the first one to be aired in years.” The prime minister stressed that the leaders of the American administration share his position that Hamas must be eradicated and Iran must not obtain nuclear weapons.
Calling Trump’s comments “bold,” Defense Minister Israel Katz told the IDF’s top brass to prepare a plan for residents of the Gaza Strip to leave voluntarily. He said further that if countries that have criticized Israel refuse to take in Palestinians, they will show themselves to be hypocritical. “Countries like Spain, Ireland, Norway, and others, which have leveled baseless and libelous allegations at Israel because of its activity in Gaza, have an obligation under every law to allow any resident of Gaza to enter their territory, and their hypocrisy will be revealed if they refuse to do so,” he said.
Trump’s bombshell was condemned by the Palestinians and Arab states but enthusiastically welcomed by the far Right in Israel.
Izzat al-Rishq, a member of Hamas’s politburo, described the Trump plan as racist and a clear attempt to do away with the Palestinian issue. A senior Hamas source warned that any such plan will be classified as a new occupation and will be met with “appropriate resistance” and could derail ongoing ceasefire negotiations and trigger regional instability. The threat to derail the ceasefire was viewed with particular concern after doctors confirmed that the three emaciated hostages released on February 8, a few days after the Trump announcement – Eli Sharabi, Or Levy and Ohad Ben Ami – were all suffering from acute malnutrition.
The Palestinian Authority condemned Trump’s comments as a serious violation of international law. ”The Palestinians express their strong rejection of calls to seize the Gaza Strip and displace Palestinians outside their homeland,” said a statement from PA leader Mahmoud Abbas. “Legitimate Palestinian rights are not negotiable, and Gaza is an integral part of Palestine.”
Despite Trump’s contention that there are countries willing to take in refugees from Gaza, the condemnation from across the Arab world was universal.
Egypt said Gaza must be rebuilt without evacuating the residents, with the Palestinian Authority authorized to rule the Gaza Strip in the framework of the two-state solution.
Saudi Arabia commented on the plan for normalization of ties with Israel as part of Trump’s grander scheme to reshape the region, stressing that such a move must be conditional on the creation of a Palestinian state, contradicting Trump’s assertion that Riyadh was not insisting on such linkage. Riyadh also condemned attempts to expel residents from their land.
A poll conducted after the plan was unveiled showed that 72% of Israelis supported the idea, although only 35% believed it will actually be implemented.
The head of the far-Right Religious Zionist Party, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, said the plan is the real answer to the October 7 Hamas attack. “A person who carried out the horrific massacre on our land will find himself having lost his land – forever. I’m now going to try to bury the dangerous idea of a Palestinian state once and for all,” he said, stressing that the reason he remained in the government, despite his opposition to the Gaza ceasefire, is that he wanted to help implement Trump’s vision.
Far-Right embraces proposal
Itamar Ben-Gvir, whose far-Right Otzma Yehudit party quit the government over the Gaza ceasefire, called on Netanyahu to work to implement the plan immediately.
“Donald, this looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” he said. “The only solution to Gaza is encouraging the Gazans to emigrate. When I said time and again in the course of the war that that was the solution, I was mocked. Now it is clear: This is the only solution to the problem of Gaza. This is the solution for the ‘day after.’”
Israel was taken by surprise by President Trump’s dramatic proposal, and the initiative was not coordinated in advance between the countries.
Up until now, the idea of transferring the Palestinian population has remained on the fringes of the radical Right in Israel. At the start of the Gaza war, some Israeli officials wanted to see Gazans emigrate to Egypt, but the idea was ditched in light of fierce Egyptian opposition. A secret plan to encourage emigration was reportedly studied by Israeli officials in recent months, but only for Gazans who wanted to leave and not on the scale that Trump spoke about.
Israel’s defense establishment was also taken by surprise and is now preparing for different scenarios. “We mustn’t become euphoric. We need to let the US lead, and study the Americans’ intentions and plans – what Israel will have to do and what the timetable is,” said one Israeli official. “How we need to prepare for the possibility of a new reality being created here, and what might happen if everything collapses. How will the region react, and what will the ramifications be on the ground. The greater the expectations, the greater could be the disappointment. Everything is volatile.”
There are still more questions than answers, although Trump clarified in the days following his statement that no American troops would be involved, and the idea was that the Gaza Strip would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of the fighting. He also stressed that Washington would not be paying the huge cost of post-war reconstruction.
But it is still uncertain if any country is actually willing to take in Palestinians from Gaza .Not a single Palestinian has agreed to cooperate with the transfer plan, and any mention of forced emigration recalls the great collective tragedy of the Palestinian people – the 1948 Nakba, when hundreds of thousands of residents fled or were forced from their homes during Israel’s 1948 War of Independence.
Whatever the outcome of the initiative, it has already granted Prime Minister Netanyahu a huge political boost. That threat of Bezalel Smotrich quitting the coalition and forcing new elections has now been removed, and Itamar Ben-Gvir says he will be willing to rejoin the government the minute Netanyahu takes steps toward implementing the Trump plan.
The last thing the far Right wants to do is topple the government when the permanent displacement of every Palestinian in Gaza is under discussion. They still have their eyes firmly on the prize – Jewish (re)settlement in Gaza, despite Trump’s comments indicating that this wasn’t what he had in mind.
Is it even possible?
Reports from Washington indicate that there was no planning ahead of the announcement to examine the feasibility of the idea and no prior meetings with the State Department or Pentagon, as would normally occur for such a significant foreign policy initiative. There was also no assessment of the number of troop required or cost estimates. The president reportedly decided on the move at the last minute, after hearing a firsthand account of the vast destruction in Gaza from his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, on his return to Washington.
There is speculation that the plan is just a way of easing the path toward normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel – a key foreign policy aim for Trump. According to this theory, the Gaza transfer plan will be dropped at the insistence of the Saudis in return for establishing diplomatic relations with Israel. A similar scenario was played out in 2020 when Trump altered his Deal of the Century at the last minute, blocking Israel from annexing parts of the West Bank in return for the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, and other Arab states establishing ties with Israel under the Abraham Accords.
The plan could also potentially be dropped in return for an arrangement under which Hamas leaders agree to go into exile.
For years, residents of Gaza have described the coastal enclave as the world’s biggest open-air prison. Surveys in the past showed that about one-third of residents would leave if they had the chance. Now they may finally have that chance. If there are countries willing to accept them (a big if, admittedly) and they want to leave voluntarily, then it is difficult to argue against such a development. And if residents begin to emigrate without coercion, it is likely that many more will opt to relocate. The problem is with the residents who will want to stay put, for whatever reason. Despite the horrors of October 7, Israel is surely not ready to transfer hundreds of thousands of Gazans against their will, risking the lives of Israeli soldiers for Donald Trump’s real estate fantasy. The ramifications of such a scenario are mind boggling. ■