Allies and adversaries of the United States reacted with shock and disapproval Wednesday to President Trump’s announcement of plans for the United States to “take over” the Gaza Strip.
Mr. Trump’s suggestion that the Palestinian territory — part of the land that many people hope will eventually become an independent Palestinian state — be redeveloped into a “Riviera of the Middle East,” owned by the U.S., sent diplomatic shockwaves around the world.
Palestinians and Israeli hostage families react to Trump’s plan
Mr. Trump’s announcement worried some Israeli hostage family members, and it drew immediate condemnation from regular Palestinians and from Hamas, which warned it could threaten the fragile Gaza ceasefire agreement.
“We came very close to dying, but we survived with the grace of God,” resident Moeen Mohsen told CBS News’ team in Gaza City. “Unfortunately, there came a decision to displace us. We reject it in its entirety. We are still holding on to our right to live.”
“We will not allow prejudice to the rights of our people, which we have struggled for many decades and made great sacrifices to achieve,” the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, was quoted as saying by the Palestinian news agency Wafa. The PA has limited authority over the other, larger Palestinian territory, the Israeli-occupied West Bank, which is run separately from Gaza.
“These calls represent a serious violation of international law, and peace and stability in the region will not be achieved without the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital,” Abbas said.
Negotiations have begun over the terms of the second phase of the ceasefire deal, which has seen 18 hostages released by Hamas and other militants in Gaza since it came into effect on January 19, including one man who is an American citizen.
In the current, six-week first phase of the deal, Hamas is to free more hostages every week in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners being released from Israeli jails.
If the deal holds, the hostage and prisoner exchanges will continue, with a total of 33 Israeli captives set to be released during the first phase. If the agreement falls apart, those releases could come to an end, and that prospect has worried some family members of those still held hostage in Gaza.
“We are shocked. We didn’t know about it, but it was clearly not a move pulled from the hip,” Ronen Neutra, the father of Israeli soldier Omer Neutra, who was killed in Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attack that sparked the war and whose body is still being held in Gaza, told the Israeli news outlet Ynet on Wednesday.
“We want to remind Trump and Netanyahu that human lives are at stake, and we need to return them as a top priority, and only after that if we want to make changes,” Neutra said.
Hamas condemned Mr. Trump’s plan, calling it “a crime against humanity, and a reinforcement of the law of the jungle at the international level.”
The U.S.- and Israeli-designated terrorist group said it was demanding “urgent regional and international action to put an end to these malicious plans, because any attempts to implement such plans will destabilize security in the region and beyond.”
“We demand that the mediators, especially the United States, oblige the occupation [Israel] to implement the ceasefire agreement in its three stages without procrastination or manipulation, as we are committed to implementing the agreement as long as the occupation commits to it, and any manipulation in implementing the agreement may cause it to collapse,” senior Hamas political official Basem Naim said in a statement.
America’s partners in the Middle East reject Trump’s Gaza plan
Regional powers, including American allies that had already rejected earlier suggestions by Mr. Trump that the more than 2 million Palestinians in Gaza be relocated to other countries, also spoke out against the plans the U.S. president iterated on Tuesday.
Egypt’s foreign ministry stressed the importance of a two-state solution to create a Palestinian nation. Saudi Arabia quickly said it would not reestablish ties with Israel — a bilateral relationship that Mr. Trump has long hoped to foster — without the creation of a Palestinian state.
“Saudi Arabia rejects any attempts to displace the Palestinians from their land,” Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry said in a statement Wednesday. “Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has affirmed the kingdom’s position in ‘a clear and explicit manner’ that does not allow for any interpretation under any circumstances.”
Reaction to Trump’s Gaza plans from around the world
Countries outside the Middle East also reacted swiftly to Mr. Trump’s proposal.
“France reiterates its opposition to any forced displacement of the Palestinian population of Gaza, which would constitute a serious violation of international law, an attack on the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinians, but also a major obstacle to the two-state solution and a major destabilizing factor for our close partners Egypt and Jordan as well as for the entire region,” French foreign ministry spokesperson Christophe Lemoine said in a statement Wednesday.
“The U.K. government’s position… is that Palestinian civilians must be able to return to their homes and rebuild their lives,” Britain’s Environment Minister Steve Reed said Wednesday. “For those people, the last… months have been a living nightmare, and it’s important they’re able to go home after this to start to rebuild. They’ll need a lot of support from the international community to do that, but it’s the only way we’re going to get to the long-term solution for all of this, and a long-term peace, which is a two-state solution.”
Russia and China also both released statements Wednesday supporting a two-state solution.
Israel’s current government — it’s most far-right, nationalist leadership in decades — and its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who stood next to Mr. Trump as he made his plans public on Tuesday at the White House, have made it clear they are not interested in working toward a two-state solution.
Dr. Sanam Vakil, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at the British Chatham House think tank, said Mr. Trump’s “provocative” comments “could be trying to disrupt conventional thinking on a longstanding conflict that has yet to be resolved or produce viable solutions.”
“He equally wants to show continued commitment to Israel to placate supporters and high-level donors in the United States and shore up Netanyahu’s fragile political balance of power to help the prime minister engage in phase two ceasefire negotiations,” Vakils said. “More broadly, this is also part of his extreme deal-making strategy that will lay the ground for broader Israeli-Saudi normalization talks. He could be using this to pave the way to promote Saudi normalization in exchange for no annexation.”
Vakil said there was a risk that Mr. Trump’s statements could, in the near term, lead to a delay in the release of further Israeli hostages in the current phase of the ceasefire.
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