President Donald Trump gestures as he arrives to watch Super Bowl LIX between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans on Sunday. Photo by Jon SooHoo/UPI |
License PhotoFeb. 10 (UPI) — President Donald Trump on Sunday doubled down on a statement last week about “owning” the Gaza Strip, taking a step forward in an interview saying that Palestinians would have no right to return to their homes.
Trump made the comments to Fox News host Brett Baier, but the president was light on details about how a purchase of Gaza would occur and how he planned to move two million people. He continued to insist that Palestinians will find new homes in Egypt and Jordan, something both countries have rejected.
“We’ll build beautiful communities for the 1.9 million people,” Trump said in the interview. “We’ll build beautiful communities, safe communities; could be five, six, could be two but we’ll build safe communities a little bit away from where they are, where all of this danger is.
“In the meantime, I would own this. Think of it as a real estate development for the future.”
Trump added that the Palestinians would have no right to return because “they’re going to have much better housing.”
“I’m talking about building a permanent place for them because if they have to return now, it will be years before you could ever — it’s not habitable,” Trump said. “It will be years before it could happen. I’m talking about starting to build and I think I could make a deal with Jordan. I think I can make a deal with Egypt.
“You know, we give them billions and billions of dollars a year.”
The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, two countries that signed the Abraham Accords with Israel normalizing ties during Trump’s first administration, blasted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for supporting Trump’s idea for Gaza.
Both countries joined Saudi Arabia in pushing back against the removal of Palestinians from Gaza. Netanyahu suggested that Saudi Arabia could be a home for a new Palestinian state.
