President Donald Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, his first meeting with a foreign leader since his inauguration.
Trump spoke alongside Netanyahu to reporters about his hopes of permanently resettling Palestinians from Gaza to somewhere else.
“I don’t think people should be going back to Gaza,” Trump said, referring to about 1.8 million Palestinians.
The meeting comes amidst an uneasy ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war as hostages are exchanged. Netanyahu and Trump spoke to reporters Tuesday afternoon.
Trump said he thinks Egypt, Jordan and other countries will accept Palestinians even if they have previously said they would not.
“Gaza is not a place for people to be living,” Trump added, saying Palestinians would rather go somewhere other than Gaza if they had an alternative.
“Why would they want to return?” Trump said, saying pictures of the area show it is a demolition site.
Trump said several areas could be built up using funds from rich nations somewhere outside of Gaza to stop the death of Palestinians.
Hamas is officially designated a terrorist group by the U.S. State Department and kicked off the war with an Oct. 7, 2023 attack on hundreds of Israeli civilians. Since then, Israel has carried out a sustained bombing campaign that has killed Hamas’ leadership and militants while leveling entire swaths of Gaza and creating a humanitarian crisis.
Trump blamed “poor leadership” in the Biden administration for the Oct. 7 attack.
“It would have never happened … not even a little bit, not even a chance,” Trump said.
“We are faced with a very complex and difficult situation, but we’ll solve the problem,” he added.
Before the meeting, Netanyahu released a statement saying the meeting would include talks about defeating Hamas, getting back hostages and “dealing with the Iranian terror axis in all its components – an axis that threatens the peace of Israel, the Middle East and the entire world.”
Iranian backed militant groups have continued launching attacks on Israel, in particular the northern part of the country where thousands of Israelis have been forced to evacuate. Israel carried out a large coordinated series of missile strikes on Oct. 25 of last year that, among other things, destroyed Iranian facilities researching nuclear weapons.
White House and military officials as well as lawmakers have a series of meetings planned with Netanyahu this week.
“The decisions we made in the war have already changed the face of the Middle East,” Netanyahu said. “Our decisions and the courage of our soldiers have redrawn the map. But I believe that working closely with President Trump, we can redraw it even further and for the better.”
“I believe that we can strengthen security, broaden the circle of peace and achieve a remarkable era of peace through strength,” he added.
