A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
President Trump is talking of another territorial acquisition by the United States.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
He says he wants the U.S. to take over Gaza, the current home of many Palestinians. Trump brought up the idea during a visit to the White House by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: 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.
INSKEEP: Turn it into seaside real estate. The president did not rule out the possibility of using U.S. troops while sending the current residents to live somewhere else not yet named. In just over two weeks since his inauguration, the president has called for the U.S. to take over a total of four countries or territories - Greenland, Canada, the Panama Canal and now a war-torn, 25-mile strip of land on the Mediterranean.
MARTÍNEZ: Joining us now to discuss is NPR international correspondent Aya Batrawy in Dubai. So what's President Trump's vision of Gaza look like?
AYA BATRAWY, BYLINE: Well, Trump already signaled, clearly many times, that he thinks Palestinians should be relocated outside of Gaza. And he says Gaza is now a demolition site - that it's uninhabitable. And this is largely true after nearly 16 months of war and Israeli air strikes that also killed nearly 50,000 Palestinians, with the U.N. and Gaza's health officials saying at least 10,000 more bodies are buried under that rubble. Now, rather than live in what he called a hell hole, Trump said yesterday, the nearly 2 million Palestinians in Gaza should go elsewhere - other countries.
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TRUMP: This can be paid for by neighboring countries of great wealth. It could be one, two, three, four, five, seven, eight, 12. It could be numerous sites or it could be one large site.
BATRAWY: It's really unclear if this is actual policy ideas being formulated or his musings at this point. But Trump, who's, you know, an international real estate developer, as well, said he envisions the U.S. taking over this coastal enclave long-term and turning it into what he called the Riviera of the Middle East.
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TRUMP: We're going to take over that piece and we're going to develop it, create thousands and thousands of jobs, and it'll be something that the entire Middle East can be very proud of.
MARTÍNEZ: And Trump has said that it's an idea that everyone he's spoken to loves, but, Aya, is it something that Palestinians in Gaza would support?
BATRAWY: You know, half of those 2 million people in Gaza are children. They need security stability. They haven't been in school for two years now. There isn't even electricity or running water in Gaza. So yeah, some families would leave, given this reality. They have said that to us. But also, people have lived in Gaza for generations and leaving would mean the end of any hopes for a Palestinian state. And in Israel, expelling Palestinians from Gaza was an idea that had mostly been relegated to the far-right corners of Israeli society. You know, Israel's prime minister didn't comment directly on Trump's idea yesterday, but he praised his, quote, "willingness to think outside the box with fresh ideas." And he said this.
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PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: After the jaws drop, people scratch their heads, and they say, you know, he's right.
MARTÍNEZ: All right. So that's one view from the Middle East, but what are other countries in the region saying?
BATRAWY: So the major Arab states, they don't want Hamas to rule Gaza, but they also don't see mass displacement as a solution either. And certainly publicly, I don't see how they could get behind this. Now, Egypt has made clear it will not accept the forced expulsion of Palestinians. Egypt has called this an injustice that they won't take part in. And Saudi Arabia, one of the countries of great wealth that the president referred to that would be needed to pay for whatever comes next in Gaza, says it rejects attempts to displace Palestinians. They say their position is non-negotiable, and that they've made this clear to the Trump administration.
MARTÍNEZ: That's NPR's Aya Batrawy. Thank you very much.
BATRAWY: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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