President Donald Trump on Thursday reiterated his desire to take over the Gaza Strip, telling a business roundtable in Qatar that the US would “make it a freedom zone” and arguing there was nothing left to save in the Palestinian territory.

Trump first pitched his Gaza idea in February, saying the US would redevelop it and relocate Palestinian residents. The plan drew condemnation from Palestinians, Arab nations, and the UN saying it would amount to ethnic cleansing.

Most of Gaza‘s 2.3 million population is internally displaced as Israel continues its military campaign against the Hamas terrorist group, which has ruled the enclave for nearly two decades. Israel began its campaign after the October 2023 Hamas attack.

Speaking to a group of officials and business leaders in Qatar, which has hosted Hamas’s political office in Doha for years, Trump said he has “concepts for Gaza that I think are very good: Make it a freedom zone, let the United States get involved.”

Trump said he had seen “aerial shots where, I mean, there’s practically no building standing. It’s not like you’re trying to save something. There’s no buildings. People are living under the rubble of buildings that collapsed, which is not acceptable.”

“I want to see that [Gaza’ be a freedom zone. And if it’s necessary, I think I’d be proud to have the United States have it, take it, make it a freedom zone. Let some good things happen.”

Trump has previously said he wants to turn Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”

Many Palestinians reject any plan involving them leaving Gaza.

Commenting on Trump‘s remarks in Qatar, Hamas official Basem Naim said the president “possesses the necessary influence” to end the Gaza war and help establish a Palestinian state.

But Naim added: “Gaza is an integral part of Palestinian land — it is not real estate for sale on the open market.”

Direct US involvement in Gaza would draw Washington deeper into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and potentially mark its biggest Middle East intervention since its 2003 Iraq invasion. Many Americans view foreign entanglements with skepticism.

Israel began its campaign in Gaza following the Hamas-led attack on southern Israeli communities on Oct. 7, 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken as hostages to Gaza.

Earlier this month, Israel approved expanded offensive plans against Hamas that might include seizing the Strip and controlling aid.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has described Trump‘s idea as “a bold vision,” and has said that he and the US president have discussed which countries might be willing to take Palestinians who leave Gaza.

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Margot Friedlaender, a Holocaust survivor who played an important role in Germany‘s remembrance culture ensuring the country’s Nazi past is not played down with the passage of time, was laid to rest on Thursday after dying last week aged 103.

A funeral ceremony took place at a Jewish cemetery and Holocaust memorial site in Weissensee, Berlin, the city where Friedlaender was born and to which she eventually returned.

Among the mourners were President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who bowed to her coffin which was covered in pink and white flowers.

Friedlaender died on May 9, almost exactly 80 years after the Soviet Red Army liberated the Theresienstadt concentration camp where she was imprisoned.

For Steinmeier, she embodied the “miracle of reconciliation” between Germany and Jews around the world, while Merz called her “one of the strongest voices of our time: for peaceful coexistence, against antisemitism and forgetting.”

Friedlaender was born in Berlin in 1921 to Auguste and Arthur Bendheim, a businessman. Her parents split in 1937, and Auguste tried in vain to emigrate with Margot and her younger brother, Ralph, in the face of intensifying persecution of Jews.

Her father was deported in August 1942 to the Auschwitz death camp where he was murdered. In early 1943, on the day Margot, Ralph and Auguste were set to make a final attempt to leave Germany, Ralph was arrested by the Gestapo secret police.

Auguste was not with her son at the time but turned herself in to accompany him in deportation to Auschwitz where both later died. Margot went underground and managed to elude the Gestapo by dying her hair red and having her nose operated on.

But she was finally apprehended in April 1944 by Jewish “catchers” — Jews recruited to track down others in hiding in exchange for security — and sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in what is the Czech Republic today.

She survived Theresienstadt and met her future husband, Adolf Friedlaender, there in early 1945, shortly before the liberation of all Nazi camps at the end of World War II, and they emigrated to New York in 1946.

In New York, Margot worked as a dressmaker and travel agent, while her husband held senior posts in Jewish organizations. Both vowed never to return to Germany.

After her husband’s death Margot revisited Berlin in 2003, among a number of Holocaust survivors invited back by the German capital’s governing Senate. She moved back for good in 2010, at age 88, regaining her German citizenship and giving talks about her Holocaust experiences, particularly in German schools.

“Not only did she extend a hand to us Germans — she came back; she gave us the gift of her tremendously generous heart and her unfailing humanity,” Steinmeier said this week.

Friedlaender‘s autobiography, Try to Make Your Life — a Jewish Girl Hiding in Nazi Berlin, was published in 2008, titled after the final message that her mother managed to pass on to Margot.

She was awarded Germany‘s Federal Cross of Merit in 2011 and in 2014, the Margot Friedlaender Prize was created to support students in Holocaust remembrance and encourage young people to show moral courage.

In a 2021 interview with Die Zeit magazine marking her centenary, Friedlaender reflected on the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party’s rise since 2015 on the back of anti-immigrant sentiment, saying it made her uncomfortable.

“I remember how excited the 10-year-old boys were back then [in Nazi era] when they were allowed to march. When you saw how people absorbed that – you don’t forget that,” she said.

“I always say: I love people, and I think there is something good in everyone, but equally I think there is something bad in everyone.”

The post Germany Lays to Rest Margot Friedlaender, Holocaust Survivor Key to Remembrance Culture first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

The United States targeted two senior Hezbollah officials and two financial facilitators with new sanctions on Thursday for their role in coordinating financial transfers to the Iran–backed terrorist group, the Treasury Department said.

The latest sanctions come as President Donald Trump said on Thursday that the United States was getting very close to securing a nuclear deal with Iran, and Tehran had “sort of” agreed to the terms.

The people targeted were based in Lebanon and Iran and worked to get money to Hezbollah from overseas donors, the department said in a statement.

Treasury said overseas donations make up a significant portion of the Islamist group’s budget.

Thursday’s action highlights Hezbollah‘s “extensive global reach through its network of terrorist donors and supporters, particularly in Tehran,” said Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Michael Faulkender.

“As part of our ongoing efforts to address Iran’s support for terrorism, Treasury will continue to intensify economic pressure on the key individuals in the Iranian regime and its proxies who enable these deadly activities.”

The post US Targets Iran-Backed Hezbollah With New Sanctions, Treasury Departments Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.