U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters on Monday after he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Palestinians had a “great opportunity” to depart Gaza during the reconstruction phase of his 20-point peace plan.
JNS asked the president, who spoke alongside Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., about a poll from May showing that about half of Gazans would be willing to emigrate.
“They’re there because they sort of have to be,” Trump told JNS, of the Palestinians in Gaza. “I’ve always said, ‘If they were given the opportunity to live in a better climate, they would move.’”
“I think it’d be a great opportunity, but let’s see if that opportunity presents itself,” Trump said. “We’re helping the people of Gaza a lot—so is Israel, by the way—so we’ll see what happens.
JNS also why other countries haven’t admitted Palestinians willing to leave Gaza.
“Let’s not talk about that, because we don’t want the controversy right now,” Trump said. “We’re helping Gaza.”
One of the main obstacles to progressing with subsequent phases of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire agreement is that Hamas has so far refused to disarm or relinquish control of the half of the Gaza strip that it still governs.
Trump said that if Hamas continues to refuse to abide by the 20-point plan, other regional forces would compel the terrorist group to disband.
“We have other countries that will come in and do it,” Trump said. “If they say they’re not going to disarm, those same countries will go and wipe them out. They don’t even need Israel.”
“We have 59 countries that signed on—big countries, countries that are outside of the Middle East,” Trump said. “They want to go in and wipe out Hamas.”
The president also qualified his earlier remarks about a potential military strike on Iran, saying that the U.S. would support a strike if Iran was in fact resuming its nuclear and ballistic missile activity.
“I hope they’re not trying to build up again, because if they are, we’re going to have no choice but very quickly to eradicate that build up,” Trump said. “I hope they’re not doing it, because we don’t want to waste the fuel on a B-2.”
