US President Donald Trump said on Monday that "controlling and owning" the Gaza Strip by the United States would be a good thing, reiterating a suggestion he made repeatedly in the early weeks of his administration, the Jerusalem Post reported.
"To have a power like the United States there controlling and owning the Gaza Strip would be a good thing," Trump told reporters at the White House after meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"If you take the people, the Palestinians, and you move them to different countries - and you have a lot of countries that will do that - and you really have a zone of freedom. "You call it a freedom zone, a free zone, a zone where people are not going to be killed every day," Trump told reporters on Monday, as reported by CNN.
He added that he was confused "why Israel ever gave up on Gaza."
"It's a scary place," Trump said. "You know what I call it - a great place that nobody wants to live in."
Trump also spoke about his campaign promise to end the war in Gaza, Trump said: "I would like to see the war stop and I think the war will stop at some point, it won't be in the very distant future."
Trump said he was continuing to work on the release of hostages held by Hamas, but said securing the release of all hostages was a "long process."
Following a January truce that saw some hostages released, Netanyahu said Israel was working on "another deal that we hope will work."
"We are committed to getting all the hostages out, but also to eliminating the evil tyranny of Hamas." in Gaza and to allow the people of Gaza to freely choose to go wherever they want," he said.
Netanyahu noted that he also discussed with Trump the US president's "bold vision" for the future of Gaza, a reference to the proposal for the US to take over the enclave that Trump has floated repeatedly in the first weeks of his administration. Trump's plan has been condemned by the international community as a proposal for ethnic cleansing.