President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speak to reporters in the Oval Office before their press conference Tuesday. Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
“This can’t go on like this,” President Trump said as he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sat in the Oval Office on Tuesday, discussing Gaza’s rebuild from the rubble.
• “Here’s what I want to do…,” Trump said, according to two officials briefed on the meeting, which included Cabinet members and Trump senior advisers.
• Trump then laid out a plan far more ambitious than what he and his aides had discussed earlier in the day: “The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip … we will develop it.” Driving the news: Trump’s earthquake of an announcement — an “audible,” staffers called it — continued to to ripple around the world Wednesday, drawing some praise but a lot of backlash, namely about its legality and logistics.
• The White House has cast Trump’s takeover plan as an idea worth discussing, but it has walked back one highly controversial part of Trump’s plan by saying Palestinians would be relocated from Gaza only temporarily, not permanently as he indicated.
Zoom in: His shocking idea for Gaza was a reminder of Trump’s go-big style of management that prizes headline-grabbing news. He calls audibles, staffers say, and they react.
• The Gaza episode also has shown how unencumbered Trump feels in making unilateral, potentially world-changing foreign policy decisions, even if they conflict with his longstanding views against foreign entanglements and nation-building.
• Trump aides and advisers say his string of recent foreign policy wins, GOP control of Congress, his new Cabinet and his trusted White House staff have emboldened him into believing he can do what others say is impossible.
But Trump’s plan was particularly far-fetched — especially his suggestion that nearly 2 million Palestinians could be permanently relocated while Gaza was rebuilt.
• To many that seemed more like a Trump negotiation tactic for reshaping the Middle East than a serious plan.
• To critics, it sounded like an endorsement of ethnic cleansing in Gaza.
Flashback: A Gaza takeover wasn’t part of the plan when Tuesday dawned. Trump’s messaging strategy called for him just to reinstitute his “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran.
• The war in Gaza and the possibility of moving Palestinians from Gaza was supposed to be on the agenda of their meeting, but the notes prepared for Trump that morning said that such a move, if it happened, would be “temporary.”
But Trump wanted something bigger, bolder, more surprising. That’s why he decided to say Palestinians should be “permanently” removed from Gaza for the rebuilding and that the U.S. should take over the enclave to develop it, a source familiar with the process told Axios.
• That huge shift reflected Trump’s thinking and private discussions he’d been having about Gaza for more than two months, sources tell Axios.
Trump’s idea was influenced by the findings of his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, who had just returned from the region. Witkoff, a Florida-based developer, was shocked by the devastation from Israel’s bombing campaign in retaliation for Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks.
• “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Witkoff told Trump, according to an aide who heard his remarks. “It’s going to take 10 or 15 years, at least, to rebuild.”
Just after 5 p.m. Tuesday, as Trump and Netanyahu sat in facing wing chairs in the Oval Office with reporters present and cameras rolling, Trump echoed Witkoff’s remarks: “Gaza maybe is a demolition site right now,” he said, pivoting to the idea of permanent relocation.
• “If we can get a beautiful area to resettle people permanently in nice homes and where they can be happy and not be shot, not be killed, not be knifed to death, like what’s happening in Gaza,” Trump said, then people would move.
Trump’s remarks surprised the press corps and roiled social media. But he wasn’t done.
• About 10 minutes later, the press filed out of the room. Trump and his team were supposed to have a private bilateral meeting with Netanyahu and his team in the Cabinet room, but the president said they should remain in the Oval Office.
• Joining Trump and Netanyahu were senior advisers of both as well as Witkoff, Vice President Vance, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Marco Rubio joined via phone from Guatemala, where he was on his first trip as Trump’s secretary of state.
• With Netanyahu were his confidant Ron Dermer, his national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi, Israeli ambassador Yechiel Leiter and military adviser Gen. Roman Gofman.
“POTUS wanted action,” said a senior administration official briefed on the meeting. “And he talked doing something bold, something that’s completely 180 degrees from what’s been done to get back to some semblance of normalcy, or whatever passes for normalcy.”
• Trump mentioned his idea of the U.S. interceding in Gaza and taking a “leadership” role, the official said, and no one objected.
An Israeli official briefed on the meeting said Trump devoted most of the time to his vision for Gaza. Trump emphasized to Netanyahu that Egypt and Jordan eventually would agree to accept Palestinians in their territory, but didn’t clarify why he believed that.
• “Trump didn’t tell Bibi where this idea came from, but said in the meeting he would include it in his statement at the press conference, and that’s what happened,” an Israeli official said.
• Trump finished the meeting by jotting down his ideas on paper. They were then added to his prepared remarks that he gave about two hours later in the press conference with Netanyahu.
The big picture: In contrast to his first administration, when Trump aides and advisers would leak details of decisions they disagreed with, Trump’s new White House crew is all in.
• “Anyone who thinks we can keep doing what we’ve been doing in the Middle East and getting a different result is smoking from a crack pipe,” one White House adviser said.
• “The president has been talking about this relocation and rebuilding issue for weeks, if not longer, with [Persian] Gulf leaders,” another White House aide said. “This really intensified after Steve Witkoff returned from his trip.”
Between the lines: Those high-level conversations Trump and Witkoff have had with Gulf leaders have led them to believe there’s an increasing appetite to settle the conflict in the Middle East and participate in a peace plan.
• Central to the Trump team’s thinking is Saudi Vision 2030, a rebranding and restructuring of the kingdom economically, socially and culturally. It’s the brainchild of Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman.
Reality check: But officials from several Gulf states said neither Saudi Arabia nor the United Arab Emirates would be ready to pay for, or take part in, a reconstruction effort in Gaza that would include displacement of Palestinians. They’re very concerned such a move could destabilize Egypt and Jordan.
• “This plan is neither practical or politically viable for any Arab country,” one Arab official said.
• Jordan’s king and Egypt’s president will be in Washington in the next two weeks to meet with Trump and discuss his plan.
Leavitt told reporters Wednesday that besides not committing U.S. troops to Gaza’s rebuild, Trump hasn’t planned on U.S. taxpayers’ money being used for it. She said Trump is looking to make a deal on Gaza with countries in the region.
• “The whole region needs to come up with their own solutions if they don’t like Trump’s solution,” Waltz told CBS.
• Rubio said Wednesday Trump’s plan wasn’t meant as a hostile move, but was one people need to think about.
• “Trump is a builder. He knows how to rebuild. He’s a leader. And he’s the ultimate negotiator,” a senior adviser said. “Everything is a negotiation. What he wants is a negotiation for peace. So everything is on the table.”