Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
President Donald Trump's Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff's impressions of Gaza were what prompted Trump's dramatic plan for the Strip, which includes the United States removing its residents and turning it into a Middle Eastern Riviera, CNN reported Thursday.
Witkoff visited the Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza with Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer last week and returned with a bleak description of what he saw.
“It is the buildings that could tip over at any moment. There’s no utilities there whatsoever, no working water, electric, gas, nothing. God knows what kind of disease might be festering there,” Witkoff told reporters on Tuesday. “So, when the president talks about cleaning it out, he talks about making it habitable. And this is a long-range plan.”
3 View gallery
Abdel Fateh el Sisi, Donald Trump, King Abdullah II
(photo: Omar AL-Qattaa / AFP, Sean Gallup / Getty Images Carlos Osorio / Reuters)
Trump's envoy said that the president intends to make Gaza a livable place and, like him, estimated it would take 10 to 15 years to rebuild.
According to CNN, Witkoff's accounts of what he had seen left a strong impression on the president, constituting a turning-point after Trump made it the central point in his agenda for the region.
Other sources in the know said the that the idea to remove Gazans from the Strip was the president's and proof that, while traditional 'experts' develop their ideas slowly, Trump comes up with them quickly in his own mind.
The New York Times cited two administration officials who said Trump discussed the idea of U.S. control of the Strip for a number of weeks and, after Witkoff's description of the reality on the ground, his plan picked up pace. They said that although the matter had been considered by him for a while, there had been no meetings on the subject with the State Department or Pentagon, or any preparations made. "It was just an idea in the president's mind," they said.
live
Trump-Netanyahu press conference
(Reuters)
There are some who wonder whether Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and another real estate investor who worked the Middle East portfolio in his first term, would play a part in the rebuilding of Gaza. He had previously spoken about the incredible development opportunities presented by the Gaza waterfront. The president also spoke publicly about that potential in a speech last month.
While there has been wall to wall condemnation of the idea in the Arab world, officials told CNN that Trump complained that there were no alternatives being suggested by regional actors.
“He’s not seeing any realistic solutions on how those miles and miles and miles of debris are going to be cleared,” U.S. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz said. “The fact that nobody has a realistic solution, and he puts some bold, fresh, new ideas on the table, I don’t think should be criticized in any way. I think it’s going to bring the entire region to come with their own solutions if they don’t like Mr. Trump’s solutions.”
But there are those in the administration who understand that there is little chance for the plan to proceed and that the White House has already begun backing away from central parts of the plan. Some officials told the New York Times that advisors to the president hope the plan dies out slowly and that he would understand in time, that it is unrealistic.
Trump's announcement of the plan was kept secret from nay of the senior officials in Washington, but he did discuss it with close advisors ahead of his meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday.
Get the Ynetnews app on your smartphone: Google Play: https://bit.ly/4eJ37pE | Apple App Store: https://bit.ly/3ZL7iNv
The Times said Witkoff and Walz spoke to Netanyahu about it on the Monday before the meeting, but the prime minister did not expect Trump's announcement in their press conference.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio who is in central America, was also kept in the dark and first heard of the plan during the press conference that followed the Trump-Netanyahu meeting. Sources told CNN that the Middle-East has been removed from Rubio's portfolio amid the involvement of Witkoff in regional matters.