WASHINGTON — Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has hailed US President Donald Trump’s widely criticised plan to move Palestinians out of the war-battered Gaza Strip, saying Israel is willing to “do the job”.
In a Fox News interview aired late Saturday as the premier was wrapping up a visit to Washington, Netanyahu defended Trump’s proposal, which has sparked concern and condemnation across the Middle East and the world.
“I think that President Trump’s proposal is the first fresh idea in years, and it has the potential to change everything in Gaza,” Netanyahu said, adding that it represents a “correct approach” to the future of the Palestinian territory.
“All Trump is saying, ‘I want to open the gate and give them an option to relocate temporarily while we rebuild the place physically’,” Netanyahu said.
Trump “never said he wants American troops to do the job. Guess what? We’ll do the job,” Netanyahu declared.
Israel seized the Gaza Strip in 1967 and maintained a military presence in the territory until 2005, when it pulled out settlers and its troops.
It subsequently imposed a crippling blockade on the Hamas-ruled territory and placed it under siege after the war began in October 2023.
Israel and armed groups in Gaza have fought several wars in recent years, but the latest — sparked by the unprecedented 2023 Hamas attack on Israel — has been the deadliest and most destructive.
Netanyahu said Trump’s plan was a departure from the “same old, same old, same old — we leave, Gaza becomes again occupied by these terrorists who use it as a base to attack Israel… It doesn’t go anywhere.”
“I think we should pursue it,” he added, cautioning that “the real issue” was finding a country that would agree to take in displaced Gazans.
The Israeli leader also said that relocated Palestinians would have to “disavow terrorism” to be allowed to return to Gaza.
For Palestinians, any attempts to force them out of Gaza would evoke dark memories of what the Arab world calls the “Nakba”, or catastrophe — the mass displacement of Palestinians during Israel’s creation in 1948.
“Everybody describes Gaza as the biggest open-air prison in the world,” Netanyahu said.
“Get the population out, allow them to leave. Not forcible eviction, not ethnic cleansing — getting people out of what all these countries and all these do-gooders say is an open-air prison. Why are you keeping them in prison?”
