White House gives further details on Trump's Gaza plan

The Trump administration is considering three potential areas for the absorption of refugee Gazans after President Donald Trump announced that the US plans to take over the Gaza Strip and relocate those currently there to rebuild the area, N12 reported on Wednesday.

According to the report, the areas being considered are Morocco, Puntland, and Somaliland.

The report noted that what these three countries share in common is a strong need for US support, as Somaliland and Puntland seek international recognition, and Morocco has an ongoing territorial dispute over Western Sahara.

US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff on Wednesday seemed to equivocate about providing Israel with 30,000-pound, bunker-buster bombs that could destroy Iran’s underground nuclear facility at Fordow. Israel “already has bunker busters,” he told Fox News.

Israel has been seeking these weapons from the US since the 2000s and the George W. Bush administration. So far, no Republican or Democratic president, including President Donald Trump in his 2016-2020 term, has agreed to provide them.

When Witkoff said Israel has bunker busters, he was likely referring to 2,000-pound bombs and some other smaller bombs the Joe Biden administration delivered to Israel for large parts of the Israel-Hamas War but then froze. The current administration resumed the deliveries when Trump reentered office.

President Donald Trump didn't commit to sending US troops to Gaza - but he also did not rule anything out - because according to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, the president is "very good" when negotiating and wants to preserve that leverage. 

At least that's what she told the reporters who hounded her in the briefing room on Wednesday afternoon following Trump's bombshell announcement Tuesday night about the US taking control of the Gaza Strip and turning it into the "Riviera of the Middle East."

So while Trump said the US is taking ownership of Gaza, Leavitt clarified the US is not going to pay for it. 

"His administration is going to work with our partners in the region to reconstruct this region. And let me just take a step back here, because this is an out of the box idea," Leavitt said. "That's who President Trump is. That's why the American people elected him, and his goal is lasting peace in the Middle East for all people in the region."

Senior Palestinian Authority (PA) officials are considering a response to the US president’s reported plan to deport Palestinians from the Gaza Strip: Proposing to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas that residents of Gaza be resettled in the West Bank, Kan 11 reported on Wednesday evening.

According to the emerging proposal, the PA would request the relocation of Gazans to the West Bank, conditional upon the construction of a new Palestinian city to accommodate them. The area west of Jericho has been identified as a potential location for this development.

Notably, the initiative predates the US president’s recent announcement and has yet to be formally presented to Abbas. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump convened for over an hour at the White House before holding a joint press conference.

On October 7, 2023, when IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi went to IDF military headquarters from his house, it was not a foregone conclusion that his destination should be Tel Aviv.

Rather, Halevi had a strong inclination also to travel straight to the Gaza border to personally manage the fight against Hamas’s invasion up close.

After all, Halevi spent his career in the special forces in hairy and complex combat situations, let tough fights, specifically in Gaza during the 2008-9 invasion, and always preferred being close to the action to feel the pulse of his troops and of the enemy.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday during his visit to Washington, praising US President Donald Trump's "maximum pressure" campaign on Iran, which the president restored on Tuesday. 

The remarks to the Post came as Netanyahu visits the US for meetings with Trump, along with other US officials. 

Netanyahu told the Post that Trump's belief in the need to reach a deal with Iran was "the pivot of everything that we're talking about."

"I think the president just said something that I think is the pivot of everything that we're talking about. He said Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, and we fully agree with that,” Netanyahu said.

US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he preferred a verified nuclear peace agreement with Iran, according to a post on his Truth Social account.

US President Donald Trump's comments about a plan to take over the war-ravaged Gaza Strip are "unacceptable," Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Wednesday, adding any plans leaving Palestinians "out of the equation" would lead to more conflict.

The office of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas rejected on Wednesday the plan proposed by US President Donald Trump on Tuesday regarding the US takeover of the Gaza Strip, Ynet reported. 

Russia believes a settlement in the Middle East is only possible on the basis of a two-state solution, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday after US President Donald Trump said he would like the United States to take over and redevelop the Gaza Strip.