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Trump Proposes Resettlement of Gazans as Netanyahu Visits White House
US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meet at the White House in Washington, DC, US, Feb. 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday proposed the resettlement of Palestinians from Gaza to neighboring countries, calling the enclave a “demolition site” and saying residents have “no alternative” as he held critical talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House.
“[The Palestinians] have no alternative right now” but to leave Gaza, Trump told reporters before Netanyahu arrived. “I mean, they’re there because they have no alternative. What do they have? It is a big pile of rubble right now.”
Trump repeated his call for Egypt, Jordan, and other Arab states in the region to take in Palestinians from Gaza after nearly 16 months of war there between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, which ruled the enclave before the war and remains the dominant faction.
Arab leaders have adamantly rejected Trump’s proposal. However, Trump argued on Tuesday that Palestinians would benefit from leaving Gaza and expressed astonishment at the notion that they would want to remain.
“Look, the Gaza thing has not worked. It’s never worked. And I feel very differently about Gaza than a lot of people. I think they should get a good, fresh, beautiful piece of land. We’ll get some people to put up the money to build it and make it nice and make it habitable and enjoyable,” Trump said.
Referring to Gaza as a “pure demolition site,” the president said he doesn’t “know how they [Palestinians] could want to stay” when asked about the reaction of Palestinian and Arab leaders to his proposal.
“If we could find the right piece of land, or numerous pieces of land, and build them some really nice places, there’s plenty of money in the area, that’s for sure,” Trump continued. “I think that would be a lot better than going back to Gaza, which has had decades and decades of death.”
However, Trump clarified that he does “not necessarily” support Israel permanently annexing and resettling Gaza.
Trump later made similar remarks with Netanyahu at his side in the Oval Office, suggesting that Palestinians should leave Gaza for good “in nice homes and where they can be happy and not be shot, not be killed.”
“They are not going to want to go back to Gaza,” he said.
Trump did not offer any specifics about how a resettlement process could be implemented.
The post-war future of Palestinians in Gaza has loomed as a major point of contention within both the United States and Israel. The former Biden administration emphatically rejected the notion of relocating Gaza civilians, demanding a humanitarian aid “surge” into the beleaguered enclave.
Trump has previously hinted at support for relocating Gaza civilians. Last month, the president said he would like to “just clean out” Gaza and resettle residents in Jordan or Egypt.
Steve Witkoff, the US special envoy to the Middle East, defended Trump’s comments in a Tuesday press conference, arguing that Gaza will remain uninhabitable for the foreseeable future.
“When the president talks about ‘cleaning it out,’ he talks about making it habitable,” Witkoff said. “It is unfair to have explained to Palestinians that they might be back in five years. That’s just preposterous.
Trump’s comments were immediately met with backlash, with some observers accusing him of supporting an ethnic cleansing plan. However, proponents of the proposal argue that it could offer Palestinians a better future and would mitigate the threat posed by Hamas.
Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists started the Gaza war on Oct. 7, 2023, when they invaded southern Israel, murdered 1,200 people, and kidnapped 251 hostages back to Gaza while perpetrating widespread sexual violence in what was the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
Israel responded with a military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.
Last month, both sides reached a Gaza ceasefire and hostage-release deal brokered by the US, Egypt, and Qatar.
Under phase one of the agreement, Hamas will, over six weeks, free a total of 33 Israeli hostages, eight of whom are deceased, and in exchange, Israel will release over 1,900 Palestinian prisoners, many of whom are serving multiple life sentences for terrorist activity. Meanwhile, fighting in Gaza will stop as negotiators work on agreeing to a second phase of the agreement, which is expected to include Hamas releasing all remaining hostages held in Gaza and the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from the enclave.
The ceasefire and the future of Gaza were expected to be key topics of conversation between Trump and Netanyahu, along with the possibility of Israel and Saudi Arabia normalizing relations and Iran’s nuclear program.
Riyadh has indicated that any normalization agreement with Israel would need to include an end to the Gaza war and the pathway to the formation of a Palestinian state.
However, perhaps the most strategically important subject will be Iran, particularly how to contain its nuclear program and combat its support for terrorist proxies across the Middle East. In recent weeks, many analysts have raised questions over whether Trump would support an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, which both Washington and Jerusalem fear are meant to ultimately develop nuclear weapons.
Netanyahu on Tuesday was the first foreign leader to visit the White House since Trump’s inauguration last month.
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Report: Wary of Assassination by Israel, Khamenei Names 3 Potential Successors
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei waves during a meeting in Tehran, Iran, May 20, 2025. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei named three senior clerics as candidates to succeed him should he be killed, the New York Times reported on Saturday citing unnamed Iranian officials. It is understood the Ayatollah fears he could be assassinated in the coming days.
Khamenei reportedly mostly speaks with his commanders through a trusted aide now, suspending electronic communications.
Khamenei has designated three senior religious figures as candidates to replace him as well as choosing successors in the military chain of command in the likely event that additional senior officials be eliminated.
Earlier on Saturday Israel confirmed the elimination of Saeed Izadi and Bhanam Shahriari.
Shahriari, head of Iran’s Quds Force Weapons Transfer Unit, responsible for arming Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, was killed in an Israeli airstrike over 1,000 km from Israel in western Iran.
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B-2 Bombers Moving to Guam Amid Middle East Tensions, US Officials Say
FILE PHOTO: A U.S. Air Force B-2 Spirit bomber takes off from Andersen Air Force Base, Guam January 11, 2018. Picture taken January 11, 2018. U.S. Air Force/Airman 1st Class Gerald Willis/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo
The United States is moving B-2 bombers to the Pacific island of Guam, two US officials told Reuters on Saturday, as President Donald Trump weighs whether the United States should take part in Israel’s strikes against Iran.
It was unclear whether the bomber deployment is tied to Middle East tensions.
The B-2 can be equipped to carry America’s 30,000-pound GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, designed to destroy targets deep underground. That is the weapon that experts say could be used to strike Iran‘s nuclear program, including Fordow.
The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, declined to disclose any further details. One official said no forward orders had been given yet to move the bombers beyond Guam. They did not say how many B-2 bombers are being moved.
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Experts and officials are closely watching to see whether the B-2 bombers will move forward to a US-British military base on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia. Experts say that Diego Garcia is in an ideal position to operate in the Middle East.
The United States had B-2 bombers on Diego Garcia up until last month, when they were replaced with B-52 bombers.
Israel said on Saturday it had killed a veteran Iranian commander during attacks by both sides in the more than week-long air war, while Tehran said it would not negotiate over its nuclear program while under threat.
Israel says Iran was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons, while Iran says its atomic program is only for peaceful purposes.
Trump has said he would take up to two weeks to decide whether the United States should enter the conflict on Israel’s side, enough time “to see whether or not people come to their senses,” he said.
Reuters was first to report this week the movement of a large number of tanker aircraft to Europe and other military assets to the Middle East, including the deployment of more fighter jets.
An aircraft carrier in the Indo-Pacific is also heading to the Middle East.
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Nuclear Diplomacy Stuck, Israel Says it Killed Top Iran Commander
Smoke rises following an Israeli attack in Tehran, Iran, June 18, 2025. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Iran deems European proposals to curb its nuclear program unrealistic and a hurdle to agreement, a senior Iranian official said on Saturday, while Israel said it killed a veteran Iranian commander during attacks by both sides.
The more than week-long air war between longtime foes Israel and Iran continued with reports of strikes on an Iranian nuclear facility. The US was weighing whether to back Israel in the conflict while other powers urged de-escalation.
Iran‘s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi met British, French and German counterparts, plus the EU, on Friday in Geneva in search of a path back to diplomacy and a possible ceasefire.
But proposals made by the European powers were “unrealistic,” the senior Iranian official told Reuters, saying that insistence on them would not bring agreement closer.
“In any case, Iran will review the European proposals in Tehran and present its responses in the next meeting,” the official said, adding that zero enrichment was a dead end and Tehran would not negotiate over its defensive capabilities.
Israel launched attacks on June 13 saying Iran was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons, while Iran says its atomic program is only for peaceful purposes. Israel is widely assumed to possess nuclear weapons, which it neither confirms nor denies.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said that Saeed Izadi, who led the Palestine Corps of the Quds Force, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ overseas arm, was killed in a strike on an apartment in the city of Qom.
Calling his killing a “major achievement for Israeli intelligence and the Air Force”, Katz said Izadi had financed and armed the Palestinian militant group Hamas ahead of its October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which triggered the war in Gaza.
The Revolutionary Guards said five of its members died in attacks on Khorramabad, according to Iranian media. They did not mention Izadi, who was on US and British sanctions lists, but said Israel had also attacked a building in Qom, with initial reports of a 16-year-old killed and two people injured.
HUNDREDS KILLED
At least 430 people have been killed and 3,500 injured in Iran since Israel began its attacks, Iranian state-run Nour News said, citing the health ministry.
In Israel, 24 civilians have been killed by Iranian missile attacks, according to local authorities, in the worst conflict between the longtime enemies.
At a meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Istanbul, Araqchi said Israel‘s aggression, which he said had indications of US involvement, should stop so Iran can “come back to diplomacy.”
“It is obvious that I can’t go to negotiations with the US when our people are under bombardments under the support of the US,” he told reporters on the sidelines, before meeting Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan.
The top Iranian diplomat said US involvement in the conflict would be “very dangerous.” Araqchi is set to visit Moscow, Iran‘s ally, on Monday.
President Donald Trump has said he would take up to two weeks to decide whether the United States should enter the conflict on Israel‘s side, enough time “to see whether or not people come to their senses,” he said.
Iran would be able to have a nuclear weapon “within a matter of weeks, or certainly within a matter of months,” he said on Friday, adding: “We can’t let that happen.”
Yet in March, Tulsi Gabbard, his national intelligence director, testified to Congress that the US intelligence community judged that Tehran was not working on a nuclear warhead.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said that a centrifuge manufacturing workshop at the Isfahan nuclear facility, one of Iran‘s biggest, was hit – but added it contained no nuclear material.
Gulf Cooperation Council ambassadors expressed concerns to UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi about the safety of nuclear facilities close to their countries and “dangerous repercussions” of targeting them, Qatar state news agency said.
Israel said it was attacking military infrastructure.
INTERCEPTIONS OVER TEL AVIV
Early on Saturday, air raid sirens were triggered across parts of central Israel and in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, with missile interceptions visible over Tel Aviv and explosions echoing. There were no reports of casualties.
Those killed in Iran include the military’s top echelon and nuclear scientists. Israel said it also killed a second commander of the Guards’ overseas arm, whom it identified as Benham Shariyari, during an overnight strike.
Iran‘s health minister, Mohammadreza Zafarqandi, said Israel has attacked three hospitals during the conflict, killing two health workers and a child, and has targeted six ambulances, according to Fars.
Asked about such reports, an Israeli military official said that only military targets were being struck, though there may have been collateral damage in some incidents.
An Iranian missile hit a hospital in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba on Thursday.
Turkey, Russia and China have demanded immediate de-escalation.
Despite the downbeat assessment from the senior Iranian official, French President Emmanuel Macron said he and Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian agreed on a Saturday call to accelerate talks.
Israel says it will not stop attacks until it dismantles Iran‘s nuclear program and ballistic missile capabilities, which it views as an existential threat, saying this could take more than a few weeks.
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