Trump officials try to walk back president’s comments on Gaza ‘takeover’ – live

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Here’s more of Palestinians rejecting Trump’s call for them to vacate Gaza, via the Associated Press:

Saeed Abu Elaish’s wife, two of his daughters and two dozen others from his extended family were killed by Israeli airstrikes over the past 15 months. His house in northern Gaza was destroyed. He and surviving family now live in a tent set up in the rubble of his home.

But he says he will not be driven out, after President Donald Trump called for transferring all Palestinians from Gaza so the United States could take over the devastated territory and rebuild it for others. Rights groups said his comments were tantamount to a call for “ethnic cleansing” and forcible expulsion.

“We categorically reject and will resist any plans to deport and transfer us from our land,” he said from the Jabaliya refugee camp.

A man sells bread under the destruction of his bakery destroyed by the Israeli air and ground offensive in Jabaliya, Gaza Strip on 5 February. Photograph: Abdel Kareem Hana/AP

Trump’s call for depopulating Gaza has stunned Palestinians. Hundreds of thousands in the territory rushed to return to their homes – even if destroyed – as soon as they could following the ceasefire reached last month between Israel and Hamas.

Mustafa al-Gazzar was 5 years old, he said, when his family and other residents were forced to flee as Israeli forces in 1948 attacked their town of Yabneh in what is now central Israel.

Now in his 80s, he sat outside his home in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, flattened by an airstrike, and said it was unthinkable to go after surviving 15 months of war.

“You think you’ll expel me abroad and bring other people in my place? … I would rather live in my tent, under rubble,” he said. “I won’t leave. Put that in your brain.”

Al Jazeera has a dispatch from central Gaza’s Deir el-Balah with the reaction to Donald Trump’s comments that the US would “take over” Gaza and that Palestinians should leave permanently.

Wasayef Abed woke up on Wednesday to murmurs among her fellow displaced Palestinians in central Gaza’s Deir el-Balah.

The discussion was centred on United States President Donald Trump and his announcement that the US would “take over” Gaza. In Trump’s comments, made as he stood next to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu – the man responsible for the decision to devastate Gaza in Israel’s war – the US president even said that Palestinians should move from the enclave permanently.

The 36-year-old Wasayef’s reaction is one of indifference.

“I didn’t pay much attention,” she said as she made her way to check on her rain-soaked tent.

“I don’t even own a mobile phone or any means of following the news,” she added indifferently, her tired face betraying her exhaustion.

“What I do know is that my mother and I will never leave Gaza, no matter what happens. All we are waiting for now is a way to return to our destroyed home in the north.”

Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, said the US president does not want to put any American troops into Gaza.

Witkoff was on Capitol Hill on Wednesday to clarify Trump’s comments the day before, during which he did not rule out deploying US troops to the Palestinian territory.

“Witkoff said that the president doesn’t want to put any troops into Gaza, and that he doesn’t want to spend any US money on Gaza,” the Republican senator for Missouri, Josh Hawley, said, according to the Washington Post.

But Witkoff did not suggest that Trump had abandoned his proposal that Gaza’s population of 2.2 million Palestinians be displaced from their land, the paper writes. It cited one senator as saying:

[Witkoff] painted a scenario of a Gazan family moving back into tents, thinking ‘I’m going to get back into a dwelling in five years,’ and that is just not going to happen. It is a wasteland of rubble.

Dozens of UK Labour MPs and four Labour peers have written to the foreign secretary, David Lammy, slamming Donald Trump’s proposal to take over the Gaza Strip.

The letter, signed by 68 parliamentarians in total, describes Trump’s plans as “ethnic cleansing” and urges Lammy to recognise an independent Palestine and voice the government’s disapproval “in no uncertain terms”.

Trump’s plans amounted to the “forcible removal and dispossession of an entire population,” said Labour MP for Tooting, Dr Rosena Allin-Khan, according to LabourList.

Donald Trump’s description of Gaza as “demolition site” completely fails to include the Israeli government’s responsibility for causing the devastation to the Palestinian territory, Amnesty International said.

Palestinians walk in the destruction caused by the Israeli air and ground offensive in Jabaliya on. Wednesday. Photograph: Abdel Kareem Hana/AP

Trump also did not acknowledge the “US government’s role in providing arms that have repeatedly been used to carry out deadly, unlawful attacks in Gaza,” the statement from the rights group said.

In the face of President Trump’s dangerous threats, it’s more important than ever for the rest of the international community to categorically reject these proposals and expedite diplomatic efforts, in line with international law, to end Israel’s unlawful occupation, dismantle apartheid and uphold human rights for Palestinians and Israelis.

Amnesty says Trump's Gaza proposal is 'appalling' and 'flagrant violation' of international law

Amnesty International has condemned Donald Trump’s proposal to deport Palestinians from Gaza to neighbouring countries, describing his comments as “inflammatory, outrageous and shameful”.

Trump’s proposal “amounts to a flagrant violation of international law” and must be “unequivocally and widely condemned”, the rights group’s secretary general, Agnès Callamard, said.

Any plan to forcibly deport Palestinians outside the occupied territory against their will is a war crime, and when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack on the civilian population, it would constitute a crime against humanity.

The US president’s comments “dangerously dehumanise” Palestinians, she said, noting that the majority of Palestinians in Gaza have already been “repeatedly uprooted and dispossessed by Israel” and yet have continued to “struggle to remain on their lands and defend their human rights.”

Anna Betts

Donald Trump’s remarks that the US will “take over” Gaza and resettle the Palestinian population elsewhere have drawn outrage and criticism from Palestinian and Arab Americans across the US.

A group of Arab Americans that supported Trump during the 2024 election rebranded itself following Trump’s comments on displacing Palestinians, from “Arab Americans for Trump” to “Arab Americans for Peace”.

In a statement, the group said that while they still believed that Trump “is committed to achieving a lasting peace in the Middle East that is satisfactory to ALL parties”, they “take issue with the president’s suggestion of taking over Gaza and removing its Palestinian inhabitants to other parts of the Arab world”.

The group added that it was “adamantly opposed to the notion of transferring Palestinians outside of historic Palestine for ANY reason”.

Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, told his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, that the international community must bear its responsibility to support the implementation of a two-state solution.

In its readout of the call, the Élysée Palace stated that the two leaders said agreed that any “forced displacement” of the Palestinian population in Gaza or the West Bank would be “unacceptable”, adding:

It would be a serious violation of international law, an obstacle to the two-state solution and a major destabilising force for Egypt and Jordan.

Germany’s president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said proposals for the deportation of Palestinians from Gaza were causing “deep concern in some people, even horror”.

Steinmeier, speaking after talks with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said such proposals were “not only unacceptable under international law” but would not serve as a “serious basis for talks” between regional actors and the US.

Trump’s Gaza plan could amount to war crime, say experts

Donald Trump’s proposal to permanently move millions of Palestinians out of Gaza to allow its reconstruction under US “ownership” could amount to a war crime or crime against humanity, experts in international law have said.

The experts said the US president’s framing of his plan without any reference to international law set a dangerous precedent that would encourage other world leaders to do similarly and contribute to a global breakdown of peace and security.

The two most obvious codes potentially breached by the Trump plan are the Geneva conventions – international treaties agreed in 1949 governing the treatment of civilians and military personnel during conflicts – and the 1998 Rome statute, which established the international criminal court to bring to justice individuals suspected of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide where states either cannot or will not do so themselves.

Under both codes, the arbitrary and permanent forcible transfer of populations is a crime.

Anna Betts

Canada’s foreign minister said that Canada’s position on Gaza had not changed, and that they are committed to achieving a two-state solution.

In a statement posted on social media, Melanie Joly wrote:

Canada’s longstanding position on Gaza has not changed. We are committed to achieving a two-state solution, where Israelis and Palestinians can live securely within internationally recognised borders.

There is no role for Hamas in the governance of Gaza. We support Palestinians’ right to self-determination, including from being forcibly displaced from Gaza.

Defense secretary Hegseth: US to look at 'all options' on Gaza

Anna Betts

Pete Hegseth has said that the Pentagon is prepared to look at “all options” when it comes to Gaza.

Hegseth made the comments on Wednesday before the start of his meeting with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Pentagon, according to Reuters.

“I would just say, on the question of Gaza, the definition of insanity is attempting to do the same thing over and over and over again” Hegseth said.

“The president is willing to think outside the box, look for new and unique, dynamic ways to solve problems that have felt like they were intractable” Hegseth added. “We’re prepared to look at all options.”

Pete Hegseth, the US defense secetary. Photograph: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

A summary of the day so far

Here’s a recap of all the day’s developments:

• A proposal by Donald Trump that the US could “take over” the Gaza Strip and that the Palestinians could live in “peace and harmony” elsewhere has sparked widespread international condemnation. Trump insisted on Wednesday that “everybody loves” his proposal.

• Trump’s top diplomat, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and spokesperson, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, appeared to backtrack his proposal that he wants a permanent relocation of Palestinians from Gaza. “The president has made it clear that they need to be temporarily relocated out of Gaza,” Leavitt said during a White House briefing. Rubio said the idea “was not meant as hostile”, describing it as a “generous move - the offer to rebuild and to be in charge of the rebuilding”.

• Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Gaza was “an integral part of the State of Palestine” and that “we will not allow the rights of our people... to be infringed on”.

• The UN secretary general, António Guterres, warned against “any form of ethnic cleansing”, adding that it is “vital to stay true to the bedrock of international law”. The UN chief said that any durable peace will require a “tangible, irreversible and permanent” progress toward the two state solution as well as the establishment of an “independent Palestinian state with Gaza as an integral part”.

• An EU spokesperson said Gaza is an “integral part” of a future Palestinian state, and that the bloc remains “fully committed” to a two-state solution.

• UK prime minister Keir Starmer said the Palestinians “must be allowed to rebuild” and pursue a two-state solution, while the German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, said Gaza belongs to Palestinians and their expulsion would be “unacceptable and contrary to international law”.

• Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry rejected “any attempts to displace the Palestinians from their land” while the Egyptian foreign minister, Badr Abdelatty, expressed support for recovery projects in Gaza without Palestinians leaving the territory.

• The UN said forcible deportation of people from occupied territory is “strictly prohibited” under international law, while Human Rights Watch said the policy would be a “moral abomination”.

• Republicans in Trump’s own party gave a mixed reaction to the president’s proposal. The speaker of the US House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, welcomed Trump’s Gaza proposal, saying it could help achieve “lasting peace in Gaza”. Rand Paul, the Kentucky senator, said the US has “no business contemplating yet another occupation to doom our treasure and spill our soldiers’ blood.”

• Israel’s far-right former national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who resigned last month in protest at the ceasefire deal, said that “encouraging” Palestinians to leave Gaza was the only correct strategy to end the war and urged the Israeli government to pursue the policy “immediately”.

• Israel’s foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar announced it would follow the US’s steps in ending cooperation with the UN’s human rights council, a day after Trump signed an executive order pulling the US out of the UN body.

• The estimated death toll in Gaza since the start of Israeli operations in the territory after the 7 October attacks reached 47,552, according to the Palestinian ministry of health on Wednesday.

• Iran’s president Masoud Pezeshkian said Iran has options to navigate US sanctions after Trump restored his “maximum pressure” campaign on the country over its nuclear programme.

• Trump also, however, called for a “verified peace agreement” with Iran that would allow the country to “peacefully grow and prosper”.

UN chief warns against 'ethnic cleansing' and calls for independent Palestinian state with Gaza as 'integral' part

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has called for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages.

Guterres warned against “any form of ethnic cleansing” in Gaza as he addressed the UN committee on the exercise of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, a day after Donald Trump announced plans for the US to take control of the strip and for Palestinians to be “resettled” in neighbouring countries.

“In the search for solutions, we must not make the problem worse,” the UN chief said.

“It is vital to stay true to the bedrock of international law. It is essential to avoid any form of ethnic cleansing.”

He said that any durable peace will require a “tangible, irreversible and permanent” progress toward the two state solution as well as the establishment of an “independent Palestinian state with Gaza as an integral part”.

António Guterres at the UN in New York. Photograph: Sarah Yenesel/EPA