WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump on Tuesday suggested that displaced Palestinians in Gaza be “permanently” resettled outside the war-torn territory.
Trump made the provocative comments at the start of his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, where the two leaders are expected to discuss the fragile ceasefire and hostage deal in the Israeli-Hamas conflict.
“I don’t think people should be going back,” Trump said. “You can’t live in Gaza right now. I think we need another location. I think it should be a location that’s going to make people happy.”
Trump’s comments came as he and top advisers made the case that a three-to-five-year timeline for reconstruction of the war-torn territory, as laid out in a temporary truce agreement, is not viable.
The president has previously called on Egypt and Jordan to resettle Gazans. Both countries have flatly rejected such proposals.
But Trump said he believes both countries— as well as other countries which he did not name— will ultimately agree to take in Palestinians.
“You look over the decades, it’s all death in Gaza,” Trump said. “This has been happening for years. It’s all death. If we can get a beautiful area to resettle people, permanently, in nice homes where they can be happy and not be shot and not be killed and not be knifed to death like what’s happening in Gaza.”
The White House’s focus on the future of Gaza’s more than 2 million residents comes as the nascent truce between Israel and Hamas hangs in the balance.
Netanyahu is facing competing pressure from his right-wing coalition to end a temporary truce against Hamas militants in Gaza and from war-weary Israelis who want the remaining hostages home and for the 15-month conflict to end.
The leaders said their talks would cover a long-sought Israel-Saudi Arabia normalization deal and shared concerns about Iran’s nuclear program, as well the second phase of the hostage deal.
Trump continues to press for relocating Palestinians from Gaza even after both Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and Jordanian King Abdullah II last publicly dismissed the idea.
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, the Palestinian Authority and the Arab League also joined Egypt and Jordan in rejecting plans to move Palestinians out of their territories in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Yet Trump may be betting he can persuade Egypt and Jordan to come around to accept displaced Palestinians because of the significant aid that the US provides Cairo and Amman. Hard-line right-wing members of Netanyahu’s government have embraced the call to move displaced Palestinians out of Gaza.
“To me, it is unfair to explain to Palestinians that they might be back in five years,” Trump’s Mideast envoy, Steve Witkoff, told reporters. “That’s just preposterous.”
Trump also signaled that he may be reconsidering an independent Palestinian state as part of a broader two-state solution to the decades-long Israel-Palestinian conflict. “Well, a lot of plans change with time,” he told reporters when asked if he was still committed to a plan like the one he laid out in 2020 that called for a Palestinian state.
“A lot of death has occurred since I left and now came back,” Trump said. “Now we are faced with a situation that’s different — in some ways better and in some ways worse. But we are faced with a very complex and difficult situation that we’ll solve.”
Netanyahu’s arrival in Washington for the first foreign leader visit of Trump’s second term comes as the prime minister’s popular support is lagging.
The prime minister is in the middle of weekslong testimony in an ongoing corruption trial that centers on allegations he exchanged favors with media moguls and wealthy associates. He has decried the accusations and said he is the victim of a “witch hunt.”
Being seen with Trump, who is popular in Israel, could help distract the public from the trial and boost Netanyahu’s standing.
“We have the right leader of Israel who’s done a great job,” Trump said of Netanyahu.
Netanyahu also praised Trump’s leadership in sealing the hostage and ceasefire deal, which went into effect the day before Trump took office. “I’ll just tell you, I am happy they are here,” Netanyahu said of Trump and his administration.
It’s Netanyahu’s first travel outside Israel since the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants in November for him, his former defense minister and Hamas’ slain military chief, accusing them of crimes against humanity during the war in Gaza. The US does not recognize the ICC’s authority over its citizens or territory.
Netanyahu met with White House national security adviser Mike Waltz and Witkoff on Monday to begin the daunting work of brokering the next phase of a ceasefire agreement.
Netanyahu said in a statement that the meeting with Witkoff and Waltz was “positive and friendly.”
The Israeli leader said he would send a delegation to Qatar to continue indirect talks with Hamas that are being mediated by the Gulf Arab country, the first confirmation that those negotiations would continue. Netanyahu also said he would convene his security Cabinet to discuss Israel’s demands for the next phase of the ceasefire when he returns to Israel at the end of the week.
Witkoff, meanwhile, said he plans to meet with Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, in Florida on Thursday to discuss the next phase in the ceasefire. Qatar and Egypt have served as key intermediaries with Hamas throughout the conflict.
Netanyahu is under intense pressure from hard-right members of his governing coalition to abandon the ceasefire and resume fighting in Gaza to eliminate Hamas. Bezalel Smotrich, one of Netanyahu’s key partners, vows to topple the government if the war isn’t relaunched, a step that could lead to early elections.
Hamas, which has reasserted control over Gaza since the ceasefire began last month, has said it will not release hostages in the second phase without an end to the war and Israeli forces’ full withdrawal. Netanyahu, meanwhile, maintains that Israel is committed to victory over Hamas and the return of all hostages captured in the Oct. 7, 2023 attack that triggered the war.
Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan is among the hostages, called on Trump to use American leverage to keep Netanyahu committed to the agreement.
Matan, 24, is among those who are expected to be included in the second phase of the deal, when all remaining living hostages — including men under the age of 50 and male soldiers — are to be exchanged for a yet-to-be-determined number of Palestinian prisoners. The second phase is also expected to include the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.
“I want President Trump to know there are certain extreme elements from within Israel who are trying to torpedo his vision,” said Zangauker, who traveled to Washington from Israel to join a planned Tuesday rally outside the White House. “We are representative of the vast, vast majority of Israel. The ultra-extremists are blackmailing the prime minister to do their bidding.”
The prime minister is also expected use the visit to press Trump to take decisive action on Iran. Tehran has faced a series of military setbacks, including Israeli forces significantly degrading Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon as well as an operation that decimated Iran’s air defenses. The moment, Netanyahu believes, has created a window to decisively address Tehran’s nuclear program.
Ahead of his meeting with Netanyahu, Trump signed an executive order that he said would increase economic pressure on Iran.
“We’re not going to allow them to have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said.

BEIT EL, West Bank: The Jewish population in the West Bank grew at twice the rate of the general Israeli population last year, according to an advocacy group that hopes the Trump administration will support policies that help accelerate the growth of settlements in the occupied territory.
The West Bank’s Jewish-settler population rose by roughly 2.3 percent — over 12,000 people — last year, reaching 529,450, according to a report by West Bank Jewish Population Stats.
That was a slight dip from the 2.9 percent growth rate in 2023, but roughly double the 1.1 percent population growth rate inside Israel proper.
The number of Jewish settlers in the West Bank could grow “much higher” under the administration of US President Donald Trump, Baruch Gordon, the director of the group that publishes the data, said Tuesday.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war and has built about 130 settlements and dozens of settlement outposts in a bid to cement its control over the territory. The Palestinians seek the area as the heartland of a future state and say the presence of settlements makes independence impossible.
Nearly all of the international community, including the former Biden administration, opposes the settlements as obstacles to peace.
The International Court of Justice ruled in July that the occupation of the West Bank was illegal and said that it violated Palestinians’ right to self-determination. It said Israeli policy in the territories constituted “systemic discrimination” based on religion, race or ethnic origin, and that Israel had already effectively annexed large parts of the territory.
During his first term, Trump broke with the international community and years of American policy. He developed close ties with settler leaders and presented a peace plan that would allow Israel to annex large parts of the West Bank and keep all of its settlements.
That track record has raised hopes among Israel’s settlers that they could be entering a new period of rapid growth. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition is dominated by settler supporters and he has placed a prominent settler leader, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, in charge of settlement planning.
“I think you’re going to see an explosion of the construction here,” Gordon said.
Gordon’s group projects the Jewish population in the West Bank will surpass 600,000 by 2030. There are roughly 3 million Palestinians living in the West Bank.
The report does not include east Jerusalem, where it estimates 340,000 Jewish settlers live. Israel says these settlers are residents of neighborhoods of its capital, while the international community considers these areas to be settlements.
Inside the gated settlement of Beit El, on a hilltop abutting several Palestinian villages in the central West Bank, construction is continuing apace. It’s a rapidly developing community, where high-rise luxury condominiums finished last year can now house 300 families and construction workers are working on a new dormitory for a Jewish seminary.
Settlers like Gordon say Israel must keep the territory for security and spiritual reasons. “This is our biblical heartland,” he says.
But critics say the settlement expansion is a recipe for continued conflict. The military last month launched a large-scale operation in the northern West Bank last month, in part as a response to militant attacks on settlements.
The United Nations says over 800 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7, 2023, triggered Israel’s war in Gaza. It also has reported a jump in settler attacks on Palestinians.
Israel says its military offensives are aimed at militants, but stone throwers and uninvolved civilians have also been killed in the crackdown.