Trump says US ‘will take over’ Gaza and Palestinians should leave

The plan to “take over” Gaza proposed by US President Donald Trump is “tantamount to ethnic cleansing,” Steve Cutts, the interim CEO of Medical Aid for Palestinians said Wednesday.

“Gaza belongs to the Palestinian people, not the United States or Israel, and this move would be tantamount to ethnic cleansing and a war crime,” he said in a statement Wednesday.

“The fate of two million Palestinians — and the very foundations of international law — hang in the balance,” Cutts warned and called on world leaders to “challenge the racist dehumanization of the Palestinian people.”

Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich commended a plan presented by United States President Donald Trump to remove Palestinians from Gaza and take ownership of the strip.

“We will work to permanently bury the dangerous idea of a Palestinian state,” Smotrich said in a video statement.

Smotrich had threatened to leave Israeli Prime Minister’s Benjamin Netanyahu’s government after a ceasefire deal was agreed with Hamas last month. Instead, he remained in government after receiving what he said were assurances that Israel will return to war in Gaza.

“I made this decision based on intimate knowledge of the behind-the-scenes actions in recent months and on my partnership in shaping our plans for continuing the campaign on all fronts. And believe me—this is just the beginning,” he said.

The minister, a settler himself, leads Religious Zionism, a far-right party pushing for Jewish settlement in Gaza.

“The plan presented yesterday by President Trump is the true response to October 7. Those who carried out the most horrific massacre on our land will find themselves losing their land forever,” he said.