Donald Trump has held talks at the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the first foreign head of state he's hosted since he became the United States president for a second time.
Among the key points of discussion between the two close allies were, a plan for the US to "take over" the coastal enclave, and the possibility of Israel normalising ties with Saudi Arabia.
Speaking after his closed-door meeting with Netanyahu, Trump said Israel and the US would "restore calm and stability to the region and expand prosperity, opportunity and hope to our nations and for all people in the Middle East, including the Arab and Muslim nations."
Permanent displacement of Palestinians
With much of Gaza destroyed during Israel's 15-month war with Hamas, Trump proposed that Palestinians living in the enclave be "permanently resettled" elsewhere.
"The only reason the Palestinians want to go back to Gaza is they have no alternative," he said.
"It's right now a demolition site, this is a demolition site, virtually every building is down, they are living under fallen concrete that is very dangerous and very precarious," Trump said.
He called on neighbouring nations, including Egypt and Jordan, to take Gazans in — but he didn't offer any specifics about how such a resettlement process could work or whether any Palestinians had been consulted about his proposal.
'A recipe for generating chaos and tension'
Bob Bowker, a former Australian ambassador to Jordan, Egypt and Syria, said neighbouring nations had "made it perfectly clear they will not tolerate the notion of people from Gaza being forced out".
"There are very significant political and security reasons why neighbouring countries will not accept the forced displacement of Palestinians out of Gaza, and I don't think the Americans have any means of persuading them otherwise," he told SBS News.
Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri condemned Trump's calls for Palestinians to leave Gaza as "expulsion from their land".
“We consider them a recipe for generating chaos and tension in the region because the people of Gaza will not allow such plans to pass," he said.
The Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, said Palestinians' desire to remain in Gaza should be respected.
"Our homeland is our homeland, if part of it is destroyed, the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian people selected the choice to return to it," he said.
"I think that we should be respecting the selections and the wishes of the Palestinian people, and the Palestinian people at the end will make the determination, their determination."
Forced displacement is generally prohibited under international law, with only a few exceptions, according to the UN.
US 'takeover' of Gaza
Trump suggested the US could "take over", "level", and redevelop the Gaza Strip after Palestinians are relocated, in a significant departure from decades of US foreign policy.
"It should not go through a process of rebuilding and occupation by the same people that have really stood there and fought for it and lived there and died there," he said.
"We will own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings."
Trump did not directly respond to a question about how and under what authority the US would be allowed to take over Gaza.
He said: "I see a long-term ownership position and I see it bringing great stability to that part of the Middle East and maybe the entire Middle East."
Trump also said "everybody" he'd spoken to about it "loved the idea of the United States owning that piece of land, developing and creating thousands of jobs with something that will be magnificent, really magnificent".
Netanyahu said Trump was "thinking outside the box with fresh ideas" and was "showing willingness to puncture conventional thinking".
Asked who would live in a redeveloped Gaza, Trump said it would be home to "the world's people" and could become "the Riviera of the Middle East".
"The potential in the Gaza Strip is unbelievable," he said
Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, a former property dealer, last year said Gaza's "waterfront property" had the potential to be "very valuable", suggesting Israel should remove civilians while it "cleans up" the strip.
Peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia
Netanyahu said he believed achieving peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia was "not only feasible, I think it is going to happen".
"I am committed to achieving it, the president [Trump] is committed to achieving it and I think the Saudi leadership is interested in achieving it, so we will give it a good shot, and I think we will succeed," he said.
The US had led months of diplomacy to get Saudi Arabia to normalise ties with Israel and recognise the country until the Hamas-Israel war escalated in October 2023, leading Saudi Arabia to shelve the matter in the face of Arab anger over Israel's offensive.
Trump said Saudi Arabia would be "very helpful" and "do what is necessary" to achieve peace in the Middle East.
But Saudi Arabia later said it would not establish ties with Israel without the creation of a Palestinian state.
A statement from the Saudi foreign ministry said Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had affirmed the kingdom's position in "a clear and explicit manner" that does not allow for any interpretation under any circumstances.
Saudi Arabia also rejects any attempts to displace the Palestinians from their land, the statement said, adding that its stance towards the Palestinians was negotiable.
— With additional reporting by Andrew Chappelle and Reuters news agency.
