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Potential US-led occupation of Gaza could amount to ethnic cleansing — newspaper

The report points out that "outside of Israel and the corridors of power in Washington, the reaction to Trump’s outlandish bid for Gaza will likely be an emphatic rejection"

WASHINGTON, February 5. /TASS/. The potential US-led occupation of the Gaza Strip that US President Donald Trump announced earlier could amount to an ethnic cleansing as over two million Palestinians would have to be relocated, the Washington Post writes.

Trump said at a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on February 4 that the US was ready to send troops to Gaza and work to redevelop the enclave once Palestinians were relocated to Egypt and Jordan. However, Cairo and Amman opposed the idea.

Trump claimed that Riyadh, which sought stability in the region, would support such a peace plan. However, the Saudi Foreign Ministry stated that the country’s relations with Israel would not be normalized until an independent Palestinian state was created. The Washington Post points out that "outside of Israel and the corridors of power in Washington, the reaction to Trump’s outlandish bid for Gaza will likely be an emphatic rejection."

The paper notes that "a US-led occupation and redevelopment of the war-ravaged Gaza Strip would be costly, deadly and politically explosive," contradicting Trump‘s statement about US military operations in the Middle East making no sense.

"Trump is eager to swing a wrecking ball through existing paradigms, and emptying Gaza of its Palestinians – a goal explicitly championed by many Israeli politicians on the right – seems the precursor to a fantastical megaproject on the Mediterranean where Palestinians may not even be allowed to live," Washington Post columnist Ishaan Tharoor notes.