Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday called U.S. President Donald Trump’s Gaza resettlement proposal a “remarkable idea.”
In an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News, the premier clarified that Trump had not suggested deploying U.S. troops to destroy Hamas, or funding the initiative himself. Netanyahu emphasized that the responsibility for eliminating the terrorist group rests with Israel, and said that wealthy neighboring states would finance any relocation efforts.
“The actual idea of allowing for Gazans who want to leave to leave, I mean, what’s wrong with that? They can leave, they can come back. They can relocate and come back. But you have to rebuild Gaza,” the prime minister stated.
“This is the first good idea I’ve heard. It’s a remarkable idea and I think that it should be really pursued, examined, pursued and done, because I think it will create a different future for everyone,” he continued.
Trump on Tuesday suggested permanently resettling roughly 1.8 million Gazans, as he hosted Netanyahu at the White House.
The proposal drew criticism from Palestinians, including Hamas, as well as Arab nations, including Saudi Arabia, and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt later clarified that any relocation would be temporary, to facilitate rebuilding efforts.
On his first foreign trip as top U.S. diplomat, Rubio defended Trump’s plan as a humanitarian initiative, calling it a “very generous” offer to aid in debris removal and reconstruction following 15 months of heavy fighting between Israel and Hamas.
“In the interim, obviously, people are going to have to live somewhere while you’re rebuilding it,” Rubio said during a news conference in Guatemala City.
Leavitt reinforced Trump’s stance in a Washington briefing, describing Gaza as “a demolition site” and citing footage of the destruction.
“The president has made it clear that they need to be temporarily relocated out of Gaza,” she said, calling it “an uninhabitable place for human beings” and arguing that it would be “evil to suggest that people should live in such dire conditions.”
Speaking to Gayle King on the show CBS Mornings on Wednesday, U.S. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz described the dire situation in Gaza, with nearly 2 million living in a place “that has thousands and thousands of unexploded ordinance and bombs,” adding that “in some places, it’s like a minefield.”
He continued: “You have buildings that are collapsing and unsafe. You have no sewage. No running water. It has become completely unlivable with this war that Hamas started on Oct. 7.”
Trump is “not seeing any realistic solutions on how those miles and miles of debris are going to be cleared. How all of these essentially unexploded bombs are going to be removed. How these people are physically going to live for the at least a decade if not longer it’s going to take to do this,” Waltz continued.
“Nobody has realistic solutions, and he puts some very bold, fresh, new ideas out on the table that I don’t think should be criticized in any way. I think it’s going to bring the entire region to come with their own solutions if they don’t like Mr. Trump’s solutions,” said Waltz.
During a meeting with Netanyahu at the Pentagon on Wednesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stated that the U.S. military is “prepared to consider all options” for Gaza’s reconstruction.
“We look forward to collaborating with our allies and counterparts, both diplomatically and militarily, to explore every possible approach,” said Hegseth.
