{"id":103364,"date":"2025-05-15T11:18:11","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T11:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/103364\/"},"modified":"2025-05-15T11:18:11","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T11:18:11","slug":"donald-trump-talks-up-freedom-zone-in-gaza-during-visit-to-qatar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/103364\/","title":{"rendered":"Donald Trump talks up ‘freedom zone’ in Gaza during visit to Qatar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump has again raised the prospect of the United States taking control of Gaza, declaring he wants to turn the war-ravaged strip into a “freedom zone”.<\/p>\n

The US president made the comments in the Qatari capital Doha, the second stop in his Middle Eastern tour of Arab states.<\/p>\n

Trump wants the US could ‘take over’ Gaza<\/a><\/p>\n

The comments came amid an in-person meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanuahu, during which the pair discussed the future of the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, he sparked outrage when he suggested Gaza could be turned into the “Riviera of the Middle East<\/a>“, resettling the Palestinian population in neighbouring countries ahead of a rebuilding mission \u2014 although he never detailed how he planned to achieve that.<\/p>\n

“We are working very hard on Gaza and Gaza has been a territory of death and destruction,” Mr Trump said.<\/p>\n

“I have concepts for Gaza that I think are very good, make it a freedom zone, let the United States get involved and make it just a freedom zone.<\/p>\n

“I’d be proud to have the United States have it, take it, make it a freedom zone.”<\/p>\n

It is not clear what the president means by “freedom zone.”<\/p>\n

Qatar and Egypt have been acting as mediators in the war in Gaza, but negotiations between Israel and Hamas have been stalled for months.<\/p>\n

Displacement of the Palestinian population is a red line for Hamas and many Arab states, and the negotiations on the future governance of the strip have also proven difficult to resolve.<\/p>\n

Loading…Trump says Iran nuclear deal is getting closer<\/p>\n

Mr Trump flagged negotiations between the United States and Iran were proving to be more constructive, as the White House tries to curb Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.<\/p>\n

“Iran has sort of agreed to the terms they’re not going to make, I call it in a friendly way, nuclear dust,” he said.<\/p>\n

On Trump’s second day in the Middle East, a ‘tough guy’, cybertrucks and a snub<\/a><\/p>\n

Donald Trump’s visit to the Middle East is certainly sending shockwaves across the region, as the president outlines his vision for relations between the United States and Arab states.<\/p>\n

“We’re not going to be making any nuclear dust in Iran. And we’ve been strong.<\/p>\n

“I want them to succeed. I want them to end up being a great country.”<\/p>\n

Mr Trump had avoided pressure from Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to launch military strikes against Iran’s nuclear program.<\/p>\n

Instead, he has opted for negotiations on a new deal with the Iranian regime halting uranium enrichment in exchange for the lifting of US sanctions.<\/p>\n

But the president has warned if talks fail, there will be consequences \u2014 including military action.<\/p>\n

“I think we’re getting close to maybe doing a deal without having to do this,” he said.<\/p>\n

“There are two steps. There’s a very, very nice step and there’s a violent step.”<\/p>\n

Mr Trump used a speech at a state banquet, hosted by the Qatari Emir, to urge the country to help convince Iran to agree to a deal.<\/p>\n

He is due to travel to the United Arab Emirates for the last stop in his tour later on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump has again raised the prospect of the United States taking control of Gaza, declaring he wants…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":103365,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[13845,32,2194,837,839,6860,49,978,659,10021,8048],"class_list":{"0":"post-103364","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-conflicts","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-gaza","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-middle-east","13":"tag-qatar","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-us","16":"tag-usa","17":"tag-wars","18":"tag-world-politics"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114511577451723231","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}