Trump says US will create Lebensraum in Gaza Strip in shock announcement during Netanyahu visit [View all]

Donald Trump has vowed that the US would “take over” war ravaged Gaza and “own it”, effectively endorsing the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, in an announcement shocking even by the standards of his norm-shattering presidency.

Trump, who has previously threatened Greenland and Panama and suggested that Canada should become the 51st state, added Gaza to his expansionist agenda, claiming that it could become the “Riviera of the Middle East” and declined to rule out sending US troops to make it happen.

“The only reason the Palestinians want to go back to Gaza is they have no alternative,” the president told a joint press conference with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Tuesday evening. “It’s right now a demolition site. This is just a demolition site. Virtually every building is down.”

Arguing that Palestinians could live out their lives in “peace and harmony” elsewhere, Trump continued: “The US will take over the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it, too. We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/05/donald-trump-plan-to-take-over-gaza-strip-netanyahu-visit

(My lightly-edited headline, but the rest is a news report. It Happened Here.)