Donald Trump has been speaking to reporters ahead of talks with Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, at the White House.
The US president said he would support an effort to permanently resettle Palestinians from Gaza to places where they can live without fear of violence.
Trump described Gaza as a “demolition site”. “The whole thing is a mess. It’s all death,” he said.
I think we need another location … If we can get a beautiful area to resettle people permanently.
He said he believed Palestinians should not be going back to Gaza. “Why would they want to return? The place has been hell,” he said.
Asked how many people he believed should be resettled from Gaza, Trump replied: “All of them.”
Updated at 17.21 EST
Key events
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Key takeaways from Trump’s comments as he hosts Netanyahu in White House
US president Donald Trump has welcomed Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to the White House on Tuesday ahead of talks on the fragile Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal.
The two leaders are expected to hold a press conference shortly. Here’s a recap of Trump’s comments to reporters before talks with Netanyahu:
Trump said Palestinians have “no alternative” but to “permanently” leave Gaza due to the devastation left by Israel’s war on Hamas. He described Gaza as a “pure demolition site” and claimed Palestinians would “love to leave Gaza”. “I don’t know how they could want to stay,” he said.
Trump’s comments marked the first time he has publicly floated the permanent relocation of Palestinians from Gaza. The US president’s remarks in effect endorsed ethnic cleansing of the territory over the opposition of Palestinians and the neighbouring countries.
Trump repeated his suggestion that Gaza’s population should be relocated to Jordan and Egypt – something both countries have firmly rejected. Asked where Palestinians should be moved to, he said they could be in Jordan, Egypt or “other places. You could have more than two.” “I think we need another location. I think it should be a location that’s going to make people happy,” he said.
Trump refused to commit to supporting an independent Palestinian state as part of the two-state solution. “Well, a lot of plans change with time,” he said when asked if he was still committed to a plan like the one he laid out in 2020 that called for a Palestinian state.
Donald Trump, taking questions from reporters in the Oval Office, refused to commit to supporting a Palestinian state.
“A lot of plans change with time,” the US president said.
Now we are faced with a situation that’s different … a very complex and difficult situation.
ShareHamas official says Trump’s comments ‘a recipe for creating chaos’
A senior Hamas official has dismissed Donald Trump’s suggestion that Palestinians should be permanently relocated from Gaza, saying the US president’s comments were a “a recipe for creating chaos and tension” in the Middle East region.
“We consider it a recipe for creating chaos and tension in the region,” Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said in a statement, adding:
Our people in the Gaza Strip will not allow these plans to pass. What is required is an end to the occupation and aggression against our people, not their expulsion from their land.
Another senior Hamas official, Izzat al-Rishq, also criticised Trump for his latest comments, according to Agence-France-Presse.
“Our people in Gaza have thwarted displacement and deportation plans under bombardment for more than 15 months,” Rishq said in a separate statement.
They are rooted in their land and will not accept any schemes aimed at uprooting them from their homeland.
Donald Trump has previously called on Gaza’s neighbouring countries such as Jordan and Egypt to take in Palestinians temporarily while reconstruction takes place in the strip.
But the US president’s comments just now mark the first time he has publicly floated making that resettlement permanent.
“I don’t think people should be going back to Gaza,” Trump said while sitting in the Oval Office with Benjamin Netanyahu.
US President Donald Trump meets with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office of the White House Photograph: Evan Vucci/APShare
Updated at 17.32 EST
Trump calls for the permanent ‘resettlement’ of all Palestinians from Gaza
Donald Trump has been speaking to reporters ahead of talks with Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, at the White House.
The US president said he would support an effort to permanently resettle Palestinians from Gaza to places where they can live without fear of violence.
Trump described Gaza as a “demolition site”. “The whole thing is a mess. It’s all death,” he said.
I think we need another location … If we can get a beautiful area to resettle people permanently.
He said he believed Palestinians should not be going back to Gaza. “Why would they want to return? The place has been hell,” he said.
Asked how many people he believed should be resettled from Gaza, Trump replied: “All of them.”
Updated at 17.21 EST
Netanyahu meets with Trump at White House
Joanna Walters
Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has arrived at the White House and begun his historic meeting with Donald Trump, as the first foreign leader to sit down in person with the 47th US president since his inauguration on January 20.
Here are some pictures showing the meet and greet.
Donald Trump makes a fist gesture as Benjamin Netanyahu arrives at the West Wing of the White House this afternoon. Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP
Shaking hands.
Trump and Netanyahu shake hands at the entrance of the White House in Washington as the Israeli leader alights from his official vehicle. Photograph: Leah Millis/Reuters
In the Oval Office.
The leaders in the Oval Office at the White House moments ago. Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP
And a protest in Washington.
An effigy of Benjamin Netanyahu is displayed during a demonstration in support of Palestinians today, with Palestinian flags flying as a backdrop today, outside the Renwick Gallery, part of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC near the White House. Photograph: Kent Nishimura/ReutersShare
Updated at 16.55 EST
Joanna Walters
Here are a few more of Donald Trump’s controversial comments about what should happen to the Palestinian residents of Gaza.
They were part of what he said in the White House a little earlier, ahead of meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu, where the US president made characteristically blunt, some might say crass, remarks that people would be “thrilled” to leave Gaza now that much of it’s in ruins.
He added, AFP reports, a suggestion that Palestinians should get a “fresh, beautiful piece of land” in either Egypt or Jordan instead.
If we could find the right piece of land, or numerous pieces of land, and build them some really nice places… I think that would be a lot better than going back to Gaza,” Trump said.
Egypt and Jordan have flatly rejected this, and earlier today their leaders stressed:
The need to commit to the united Arab position” that would help achieve peace, according to the Egyptian presidency.
Gazans have also denounced Trump’s idea.
Trump thinks Gaza is a pile of garbage – absolutely not,” said 34-year-old Hatem Azzam, a resident of the southern city of Rafah.
That’s not to say that Rafah isn’t suffering, coming up for 16 months since Israel launched a massive military counteroffensive in Gaza after Hamas, which controls the territory, led an attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
Palestinians walk past the rubble of buildings destroyed during the Israeli offensive, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip February 4, 2025. Photograph: Hatem Khaled/ReutersShare
Joanna Walters
Donald Trump is known more for speaking than for listening but he has said moments ahead of his meeting with Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House this afternoon, with a press conference due an hour from now, that he is “here to listen” to the prime minister.
The US president has indicated however that he was likely to urge Netanyahu to stick to the ceasefire deal with Hamas over Gaza – parts of which have yet to be finalized, Agence France-Presse reports.
Yesterday in Washington, Trump said: “I have no guarantees that the peace is going to hold.”
The current phase of the ceasefire, which began last month, is due to expire on March 1 and talks to secure phase two were meant to start already but have not yet done so, casting a heavy pall of uncertainty over the situation.
Flags being prepared for the arrival of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu outside the East Wing of the White House, Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025, in Washington. Photograph: Alex Brandon/APShare
Updated at 16.22 EST
Joanna Walters
Here are some of the latest news agency pix coming out since a UN assessment that the long-term refugee camp in Jenin in the West Bank is going in “a catastrophic direction”. The events are unfolding since a major operation by the Israeli military began last month, in which large areas had been “completely destroyed in a series of detonations by the Israeli forces,”
according to UNWRA.
Israeli army vehicles and a Palestinian ambulance drive along a damaged road near the main entrance to Jenin refugee camp during an ongoing Israeli military operation in the West Bank city of Jenin, 04 February 2025. Photograph: Alaa Badarneh/EPA
Difficult conditions for residents.
An elderly Palestinian man walks along a damaged road near the main entrance to Jenin refugee camp today. Photograph: Alaa Badarneh/EPA
Israeli forces continue their operations.
Israeli military members walking amid the destruction during the Israeli army operation in Jenin, yesterday. Photograph: Raneen Sawafta/Reuters
Another image.
Israeli forces inside Jenin refugee camp yesterday Photograph: Alaa Badarneh/EPAShareTrump says Palestinians have no alternative but to leave Gaza
Donald Trump said Palestinians have no alternative but to leave Gaza, as he reiterated calls for relocating Palestinians from the territory to neighbouring countries Jordan and Egypt.
Trump, speaking from the White House, claimed Palestinians would “love to leave Gaza”, Reuters reports.
“I would think that they would be thrilled,” he said.
Donald Trump spoke to reporters as he signed executive orders preventing the US from providing support to the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) and withdrawing from the UN’s human rights council.
Trump said he believed the UN has “tremendous potential” but “it’s not being well run”. “They’ve got to get their act together,” he said.
Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington. Photograph: Elizabeth Frantz/ReutersShare
Updated at 16.54 EST
Summary of the day so far
It’s just past 10pm in Tel Aviv, Gaza and Beirut. Here’s a recap of the latest developments:
The US president, Donald Trump, is meeting with Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, at the White House later today. Netanyahu is the first foreign leader to be hosted by Trump since his inauguration on 20 January. Their meeting coincides with the start of mediation efforts between Israel and Hamas on the crucial second phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal and hostage release.
Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, said a three to five year timeline for reconstruction of Gaza is not viable. “It is unfair to have explained to Palestinians that they might be back in five years. That’s just preposterous,” Witkoff told reporters ahead of the Trump-Netanyahu meeting in Washington.
The meeting between Netanyahu and Trump comes as the Middle East region is at a critical junction, amid a fragile Gaza truce, a parallel Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire agreement in Lebanon nearing possible expiration, and concerns about Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Netanyahu is reportedly determined that the second phase of the ceasefire deal with Hamas does not proceed in its current iteration, in which Israeli troops would fully withdraw from Gaza, while Trump has said he wants the truce to continue.
It also comes after Trump’s proposal that more Palestinians in Gaza move to neighbouring countries to “just clean out” the whole strip. US officials, previewing the Netanyahu-Trump talks, said Trump “believes that Gaza is a demolition site, he thinks it is inhumane to force people to live in an area that is not fit for habitation.” On Monday, five Arab foreign ministers and a senior Palestinian official sent a joint letter to the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, insisting that reconstruction in Gaza should be “through direct engagement with and participation of the people of Gaza.”
Talks on the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal have started, a spokesperson for Hamas said. Hamas also accused Israel of delaying and obstructing the flow of aid into Gaza. “What has been implemented in these aspects is much less than what was agreed on,” a Hamas statement said. Netanyahu’s office said Israel would send a delegation to Qatar to continue negotiations this weekend.
The Israeli military said it killed 55 people during operations in the occupied West Bank in January. A spokesperson for Unrwa said an estimated 2,450 to 3,000 families have been displaced from the Tulkarem refugee camp in the West Bank, and that 3,000 families have fled Jenin refugee camp since December. Meanwhile, the Palestinian health ministry said the death toll in Gaza has reached 47,540 and the number of injuries stands at 111,618.
The situation in Jenin camp in the occupied West Bank is heading into a “catastrophic direction,” a spokesperson for the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) warned. Two weeks after the Israeli military launched a large-scale operation in Jenin, the Palestinian city is largely deserted with thousands of people having been forced to flee their homes. Palestinians see Israel’s operation as an attempt to displace them from land they see as the core of a future state in a repeat of events in 1948 that they call the “Nakba”, or catastrophe.
Fifteen Palestinian prisoners freed by Israel under the terms of the Gaza ceasefire agreement arrived in Turkey, the country’s foreign minister Hakan Fidan confirmed. The first phase of the ceasefire deal, which runs 42 days from when it came into effect on 19 January, should see the release of 33 Israeli hostages held by Hamas in return for the freeing of around 1,900 prisoners, mostly Palestinians, being held in Israeli jails. So far, Hamas has released 13 Israeli hostages.
Syria’s interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, said his government aims to restore ties with the US but has not yet had any contact with the Trump administration. He called for US sanctions on Syria to be lifted, saying they pose the “gravest risk” to the country and its recovery from civil war. Sharaa held talks with the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in Ankara on Tuesday on the “joint steps to be taken for economic recovery, sustainable stability and security” in Syria, according to Erdogan’s office.
ShareTrump signs executive order stopping Unrwa funding and withdrawing US from UN human rights council
Donald Trump has signed an executive order withdrawing the US from the UN human rights council and prohibiting future funding for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa).
US funding to Unrwa was suspended in 2024 under Joe Biden’s administration, after Israel accused a handful of Unrwa employees of participating in the Hamas attacks on 7 October 2023.
A series of investigations, including one led by the French former foreign minister Catherine Colonna, found some “neutrality related issues” at Unrwa – but emphasised Israel had not provided evidence for its headline allegation.
Trump’s first administration cut funding to the agency in 2018 before the Biden administration restarted it again in 2021.
The first Trump administration also withdrew the US from the UN’s human rights council in 2018 and the Biden administration rejoined the body three years later.
Patrick Wintour
Iran’s reformists are pressing for the country to make concessions on financial transparency to allow it to reconnect to the global economic system and send a signal to the Trump White House that it is serious about renegotiating a new relationship with the west, including around its nuclear programme.
Tehran is expected in the next week to take decisions that would mean it would be taken off the blacklist of the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the body that tackles money laundering and terrorist financing.
Currently, the only countries on the blacklist are Iran, North Korea and Myanmar. Russia, China and the Iranian private sector are all urging Tehran to take the steps that would end the blacklisting. But conservatives and the security establishment are resisting, saying such moves would expose Iran’s financial workings, including the funding of groups such as Hezbollah.
The transparency would also allow the west to target sanctions against Iran more effectively.
ShareTrump envoy says Gaza rebuilding timeline is ‘preposterous’
Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, said a three to five year timeline for reconstruction of Gaza, as set out in the temporary truce agreement between Israel and Hamas, is not viable.
“It is unfair to have explained to Palestinians that they might be back in five years. That’s just preposterous,” Witkoff told reporters outside the White House ahead of a visit by Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Witkoff played a key role in helping the Biden administration secure a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas before Trump took office in January.
“We’re in phase 2 now,” Witkoff told reporters, adding that he had met with Netanyahu on Monday to discuss parameters for the policy negotiations.
US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff (L), with National Security Advisor Michael Waltz (R), outside the West Wing of the White House in Washington DC. Photograph: Shawn Thew/EPAShare
Updated at 15.56 EST
The US Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, said he will meet with Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, in Florida on Thursday.
The meeting comes as Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, visits the US and will coincide with the scheduled resumption of indirect talks this week between Israel and Hamas on the crucial second phase of a Gaza ceasefire deal and hostage release.
Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump will likely appear in lock step publicly when they meet this afternoon despite facing sharp policy differences behind closed doors.
“You’ll see a very lovey dovey exterior,” a source told CNN. “Inside, it’s an epic meeting.”
The Israeli leader is determined that the second phase of the ceasefire deal with Hamas does not proceed in its current iteration, in which Israeli troops would fully withdraw from Gaza, the source told the outlet.
Trump, however, has said he wants the truce to continue. “The message that was conveyed to Israel was, ‘Trump is allergic to war,’’’ the source said.