--- title: Trump Proposes U.S. Take Over Gaza, Level It and Build Resorts description: With Benjamin Netanyahu by his side, Trump explicitly called for displacing Palestinians from their homeland, testing a fragile ceasefire. canonical: https://time.com/7212848/trump-gaza-own/ author: Brian Bennett article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2025-02-05T01:08:24.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-01-19T18:44:11.000Z article:section: Politics og:title: Trump Proposes U.S. Take Over Gaza, Level It and Build Resorts og:description: President Trump called for the U.S. to "own” the Gaza Strip, “level the site” and develop it, explicitly calling for displacing Palestinians from their homeland as the region’s leaders struggle to maintain a fragile ceasefire. og:url: https://time.com/7212848/trump-gaza-own/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1ac3ce57207917ae/6998b31225f3ee7d5c6426f7/GettyImages-2197144270.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: President Trump And Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu Hold News Conference og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Trump Proposes U.S. Take Over Gaza, Level It and Build Resorts twitter:description: President Trump called for the U.S. to "own” the Gaza Strip, “level the site” and develop it, explicitly calling for displacing Palestinians from their homeland as the region’s leaders struggle to maintain a fragile ceasefire. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1ac3ce57207917ae/6998b31225f3ee7d5c6426f7/GettyImages-2197144270.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Trump Proposes U.S. Take Over Gaza, Level It and Build Resorts > Sponsored content. 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Updated: Jan 19, 2026 6:44 PM UTCPublished: Feb 5, 2025 1:08 AM UTC  Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, left, and President Donald Trump during a news conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC,on Feb. 4, 2025. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, left, and President Donald Trump during a news conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC,on Feb. 4, 2025.Ting Shen—Bloomberg/Getty Images  by [Brian Bennett](https://time.com/author/brian-bennett/)  ## Brian Bennett Bennett is the senior White House correspondent at TIME. Updated: Jan 19, 2026 6:44 PM UTCPublished: Feb 5, 2025 1:08 AM UTC First it was [buy Greenland](https://time.com/7208293/buying-greenland-history/), then [make Canada a state](https://time.com/7207723/trump-canada/). Now Donald Trump wants to own the Gaza Strip. The President proposed on Tuesday that the U.S. should “own” the Gaza Strip, “level the site” and develop it, explicitly calling for displacing 2 million Palestinians from their homeland as the region’s leaders struggle to maintain a fragile ceasefire. During a wide-ranging press conference with Israel’s Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu](https://time.com/7008717/benjamin-netanyahu-interview/), Trump laid out a sweeping plan for the U.S. to colonize Gaza and build resorts there. “I don’t want to be cute. I don’t want to be a wise guy, but—the Riviera of the Middle East. This could be so magnificent,” Trump said. The idea would upend a centuries-old conflict over ownership of the land along the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea by permanently relocating the Palestinian people. Netanyahu didn’t dismiss the concept. “I think it’s worth paying attention to. We are talking about it,” Netanyahu said. “I think it is something that could change history, and it is worthwhile really pursuing this idea.” Democrats largely balked at the suggestion, labeling it “[crazy](https://x.com/SenBlumenthal/status/1886955406049624263)” and “[morally bankrupt](https://x.com/RoKhanna/status/1886970570257961419).” Progressive Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who is Palestinian American, [accused](https://x.com/RepRashida/status/1886919833184325927) Trump of “openly calling for ethnic cleansing.” Trump ally Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham [said](https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/02/04/congress/trumps-gaza-comments-confuses-gop-00202538) he would “keep an open mind” but suggested the plan would receive pushback both at home and abroad. “We’ll see what our Arab friends say about that,” he said. Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry [issued a statement](https://x.com/KSAmofaEN/status/1886953044484473007) reaffirming its “unequivocal rejection of any infringement on the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, \[including\] attempts to displace them from their land.” The Kingdom had previously joined Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, the UAE, and the Palestine Liberation Organization in a [joint letter](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25512190-a6-to-sec/) to Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday that emphasized: “Reconstruction in Gaza should be through direct engagement with and participation of the people of Gaza. Palestinians will live in their land and help rebuild it.” Trump’s outlandish real-estate pitch comes at a delicate moment in the [cease-fire agreement](https://time.com/7207250/ceasefire-gaza-israel-hamas/) announced on Jan. 15 between Hamas and Israel, as Israel is still trying to get Hamas to hand over Israeli hostages and the remains of those who died while being held by Hamas. Ownership of the Gaza Strip and Israeli land is a central part of the conflict, with Hamas leaders threatening another invasion of Israel and right-wing Israeli settlers continuing to call for claiming land in Gaza. In a [statement](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/2/5/trump-says-us-will-take-over-and-own-gaza-in-redevelopment-plan), Hamas called Trump’s proposal “a recipe for generating chaos and tension,” adding: “Our people in the Gaza Strip will not allow these plans to pass.” More than two million Palestinians live in Gaza, where many own land and have lived there for many generations. Trump proposed ignoring all that history and having the U.S. take ownership, alluding to the monumental rebuilding facing the Palestinian people as a reason such a transfer makes sense. “The U.S. 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. Level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings. Level it out,” he said. When asked who would live there, he said: “I envision the world’s people living there.” Trump’s idea cuts against the longstanding insistence by Israel’s neighbors Egypt and Jordan that Palestinians should not be permanently displaced from their homes in Gaza. Mike Waltz, Trump’s national security advisor, said that Trump spoke with Egyptian President Abdel Al Sisi on Tuesday and that Jordanian King Abdullah would visit the White House next week. Speaking with reporters before Trump’s press conference with Netanyahu, Waltz said that the extent of the damage in Gaza created a particular challenge for those in southern Gaza waiting to return to their land in the north of the strip. He said rebuilding parts of Gaza that were bombed in the war could take more than a decade, as parts are still riddled with explosives and sit on top of a honeycomb of tunnels built by Hamas. “At some point, we have to look realistically, how do you rebuild Gaza? What does that look like? What is the timeline?” Waltz said. “A lot of people were looking at very unrealistic timelines. We’re talking 10 to 15 years.” _—Chad de Guzman contributed reporting._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/7212848/trump-gaza-own/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/7212848/trump-gaza-own/"},"headline":"Trump Proposes U.S. Take Over Gaza, Level It and Build Resorts","datePublished":"2025-02-05T01:08:24.000Z","dateModified":"2026-01-19T18:44:11.000Z","description":"“I don’t want to be cute. 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