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00:00First, an American takeover of Gaza, a Riviera of the Middle East and Palestinians forced
00:18to resettle in other countries. President Donald Trump's extraordinary suggestions
00:23have been roundly condemned by international allies today, including France, the United
00:28Kingdom and Saudi Arabia. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has called his words extremely
00:34surprising.
00:35Well, Trump made those comments in Washington, speaking alongside the Israeli leader, Benjamin
00:40Netanyahu. Here's a look at what unfolded.
00:44The Riviera of the Middle East, this could be something that could be so bad. This could
00:48be so magnificent.
00:50It was an announcement evocative of the president's real estate roots. Speaking at a press conference
00:56alongside the Israeli Prime Minister, Donald Trump said the United States would take over
01:01the Gaza Strip and redevelop it.
01:04We'll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and
01:09other weapons on the site, create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers
01:15of jobs and housing for the people of the area.
01:20Trump repeatedly said that Palestinians living in Gaza had been unlucky and that they should
01:25not be the ones to rebuild the territory. Instead, the president said the population
01:30of roughly 2 million should be housed by countries with, quote, humanitarian hearts while Gaza
01:36is being cleared.
01:37Egypt, Jordan and other US allies in the Middle East say that relocating Palestinians from
01:43Gaza would threaten regional stability and undermine the push for a two-state solution.
01:50International law prohibits forced displacement.
01:53After its redevelopment, Trump said Gaza could be home to, quote, the world's people,
01:58including Palestinians. The president did not answer a question on how and under what
02:04authority the US could take over and occupy Gaza, and he didn't rule out sending American
02:10troops to support the reconstruction.
02:13Washington taking a direct stake in Gaza would counter decades of US policy towards the Israeli-Palestinian
02:19conflict. Trump said everyone he had spoken to about the proposal loved the idea. However,
02:26it's already attracting criticism, including from Washington's allies. Saudi Arabia issued
02:31a firm statement saying the Palestinian people remain committed to their land and will not
02:37budge from it.
02:38Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, praised Trump for thinking outside the box.
02:45No surprise that Palestinians in Gaza have reacted with shock and anger at Trump's idea.
02:52Here's a sense of the mood in Gaza City this morning.
02:55I am Gazan. My father and grandfather were from here. We are true Gazans, so they can
03:01do whatever they want to do and we shall remain steadfast in our homeland. We will not leave.
03:07We've got one option only, live or die here.
03:11We've been fighting displacement since 1948, so we refuse this because we've been fighting
03:16this for over 76 years. You can say we are approaching 100 years of conflict. We reject
03:22displacement and expulsion from our land. This is our land.
03:28We shall not leave no matter what. My house was destroyed. I can't sleep on the rubble.
03:33We shall not leave even if they deprive us. We will remain steadfast on our land, the
03:37land of our grandparents.
03:40Well, I'm pleased to welcome to the programme now Dalal Erekat. She joins us live from the
03:47Palestinian city of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. She is an Associate Professor of
03:53Diplomacy and of Conflict Resolution at the Arab American University there. Good afternoon
03:59to you and thanks for joining us.
04:02Look, first of all, as a Palestinian, as an academic, tell us your first reaction when
04:08you heard that Donald Trump says he wants the United States to take over Gaza and turn
04:13it into a Riviera of the Middle East.
04:16Well, to start with, he's back to his imposing facts on our grounds. Yet, I want to adopt
04:23a pragmatic approach and respond to his announcements today through Frans van Katrnau. From an academic
04:30perspective, I would like to analyse what we just heard from two dimensions, from two
04:34angles.
04:35First of all, the very visionary, yes, out-of-the-box, creative statements about having the Riviera
04:44of the Middle East in Gaza. Let me tell you, and this is a message to Trump, that I don't
04:49think any Palestinian or any Gazan actually would oppose such a great visionary idea of
04:55having Gaza hosting the resource of the Middle East, to have the center of the Middle East
05:00in Gaza.
05:01And we don't see any contradiction with that visionary plan while having the Palestinian
05:08people themselves enjoying that Riviera, since this Riviera will be actually hosted on the
05:13lands of the Palestinians. We should not neglect in this pragmatic, visionary, creative scenario
05:19that the Palestinian people were displaced, forcibly displaced many times, and this is
05:23their land and they continue to be there. And for the past 15 months, with every attempt
05:28that the Israeli military occupation forces tried through a genocide to displace the Palestinian
05:33people, they did not leave. They remained on the land. So here I am advocating for this
05:38visionary Riviera in Gaza, but why not have the Palestinians themselves enjoy this Riviera?
05:44On the other hand, the other angle of the analysis, we come to international law, and
05:50we need to do a reading of his statement from an international law perspective. Here
05:54the statements are not merely passing political rhetoric, but it actually reflects the modern
06:01colonialist mindset that seeks to impose new realities on our grounds through force, through
06:06blatant violations of international law, as exactly like he did with Jerusalem and the
06:12settlements and the Golan Heights with his previous administration. More importantly,
06:16I think, sure.
06:17Go ahead, finish your thought. Go ahead.
06:19I mean, there is, in his vision, under international law, it constitutes his inciting for crimes
06:28of forced displacements against the Palestinian people, another crime of land seizure by Kuwaitians,
06:34and another crime of collective punishment. So all of which are classified under war crimes
06:39under international law.
06:41And look, you said this isn't just rhetoric, in your view, by Donald Trump. I was going
06:46to ask you about that, because we have to wonder, look, how serious do we think Donald
06:51Trump is about all of this? Was that just kind of show yesterday in that press conference?
06:57Because look, we know Arab countries are pretty clear that they're not going to take in Palestinians.
07:03So really, is this just talk?
07:06Listen, many, many analysts and decision makers around the world would agree that Trump is
07:11totally unpredictable, and that's why everybody was surprised. The international reactions,
07:16including the Arab world reactions, are very important. Some reactions are saying that
07:21his statements are nonsense. Yes, logically speaking, academically speaking, from a political
07:26science thought perspective and legal perspective, it is nonsense. However, we should not undermine
07:32the fact that also his previous imposed facts on our grounds were also under the framework
07:38of nonsense, were also under the framework of violations of international law. He did
07:42recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. He did give authorities for the Golan Heights
07:47for the Israeli authorities. He is now advocating for annexations to become de jure. And he
07:52is using the terminology of Judea and Samaria instead of West Bank. So I think now we actually
08:00need to respond with a very, very serious political tone to what he had announced. Yes,
08:08it doesn't make any sense. Yet the international reaction, the Palestinian reaction needs to
08:12also be solid and needs to come. You know, we need to walk our talk in our unity and
08:17in our proposals and in our, you know, brokering what the Palestinian people's resilience deserve
08:23in preserving our political rights, our right to self-determination, and preserving the
08:27dignity of those refugees and displaced people who had already been suffering for the past
08:3215 months. On the international arena, I would expect every country of the international world
08:39system, not only to issue statements and firm statements and with the gratitude to the statements
08:44which were already issued, yet now there is need for the international coalition on the
08:49two-state solution led by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and France to take action. It is now the
08:54time, the prime time to move from rhetoric to action, from statements to concrete imposed
09:01facts on our grounds. If we are serious about peace, two-state solution, security and stability
09:07in the region, then Trump needs to be reminded that the primary party to this instability in
09:12the region is the Palestinian people and the Palestinian people have embedded rights. It's
09:16not a favour that Trump is bringing to the Palestinian people. And yes, why not have
09:22the Riviera in Gaza while the Palestinian people enjoy it? Well, look, your take on that is very
09:27interesting, but we're not going to have a two-state solution, peace in Gaza, if the ceasefire
09:33doesn't hold. Phase two of that deal is supposed to be being discussed around now. That would
09:38involve Israeli troops, in theory, leaving Gaza and more Israeli hostages being released.
09:47Are we close to that now? Do you think that Trump's statements yesterday interfere with
09:52efforts to continue the ceasefire? Well, the whole scenario of Netanyahu's visit to Washington
09:59actually interfered because the visit in itself was a violation to the basic agreement on ceasefire
10:06and hostage exchanges. He did postpone, in violation of the agreement, the second phase
10:12of negotiations. So that was a blatant, blunt violation of the agreement. However, if we were
10:18talking about peace again, if we're talking about sustainability of this ceasefire agreement,
10:24then a political, comprehensive, inclusive framework must be adopted. And here we must
10:30talk about, you know, the need to identify the borders of the state of Israel, the need to
10:35implement what came in the ICJ ruling back in July 2024, which basically, I mean, spelled out
10:42the illegality of the Israeli prolonged military occupation and the need to dismantle the settler
10:47colonial project within a time frame that was given consent by 149 countries in September 24
10:55in the UN. It is time now for the world to act seriously and to move from rhetoric to action.
11:02And look, just a final question for you. You're in the occupied West Bank, you're in the city of Ramallah.
11:07Give us a sense of, you know, how this news is being digested, where you are, because we've
11:14been looking at images from Jenin, another Palestinian city over the past couple of days,
11:19a major military incursion by Israel ongoing there at the moment. Are people fearful of a wider
11:26Israeli campaign in the West Bank, given Donald Trump's clear support for Israel at the moment?
11:31Listen, what we also saw in Trump's actual statements is an alignment between Trump's
11:38thinking with the right extreme wing government in Israel, exactly that. And what we're witnessing
11:43in the West Bank, the suffocation, the blockage, the intensified checkpoints, the military operations
11:50under the pretext, again, of, you know, getting rid of resistance. It's again under one framework
11:56of a settler colonial project, which might come, as Trump was mentioning, under, you know, the
12:01validation of annexation of the West Bank. Yes, people are fearful, but people are also resilient
12:07and people are very frustrated and furious against the more imposed illegal facts on our
12:13grounds. The Palestinian people are here to tell the whole world that we will not leave. You know,
12:18every attempt that Israel had been trying to use against the Palestinian people, not only for the
12:23past 15 months, but also for the past 77 years in trying to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian
12:28people and trying to forcibly evict the Palestinians and trying to extrajudicially kill the
12:33Palestinians, to also detain the Palestinians. The Palestinian people continue to show resilience,
12:40continue to also demonstrate that there are embedded rights for the Palestinian people
12:45politically. And we will not accept that this, you know, visionary way of thinking,
12:49more creativity comes only in economic solutions and that undermine the political rights of the
12:56Palestinian people. So if Trump is serious about winning the Nobel Prize and we as Palestinians
13:01will be happy, actually, if he gets there. But he needs to realize that the most important lesson
13:07learned from his previous brokered Abraham Accords, that he needs to include the primary party to this
13:13conflict, which is the Palestinian people. The Palestinian people deserve to have a word and
13:18they have the right to decide the future and to enjoy a dignified Palestinian, liberated and
13:25sovereign state. Dalal Erekat, look, it's been really interesting to talk to you today. Thank
13:30you very much indeed. Thank you. All of you there from Ramallah with Dalal Erekat and let's broaden
13:39this out a little bit now and look at how Middle Eastern countries have been reacting to Trump's
13:45press conference yesterday. Emerald Maxwell is with me now and she's been looking into some of
13:49the details. Emerald. Yes, well, predictably, Nadia, Trump's comments have provoked really a backlash
13:56in much of the Middle East, not least from the Palestinians, as we heard there, with whom
14:01resettlement is understandably a very sensitive issue. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, he
14:07called for the United Nations to protect the Palestinian people and their rights and said that
14:12what Trump wanted to do would be a serious violation of international law. Meanwhile, Hamas,
14:17which sparked the war with its October 7th attack on Israel, they called the remarks absurd and asked
14:24Trump to walk back from them. They also called them irresponsible. They say contradict international
14:28law and the basic rights of the Palestinian people. They also added that Trump's call for
14:32Gazans to be resettled in nearby countries was a recipe for creating chaos and tension in the
14:38region. And of course, as the common feeling across the region, the exodus of Palestinians
14:44during the creation of Israel in 1948 triggered years of instability in neighbouring countries
14:49like Jordan and Lebanon, which are now home to millions of Palestinians, Palestinian refugees.
14:55There's no official census, but by most estimates, more than 50% of Jordanians are, in fact,
15:01Palestinian. Jordan's King Abdullah said today that he rejected any attempts to annex land
15:07and displace Palestinians, as he has whenever this idea of resettling Gazans has come up,
15:13whether it be from Trump or anyone else. Jordan, though, is a close US ally and has been heavily
15:19dependent on US aid, which although Trump has since announced a freeze on US aid since he
15:25came to power, could he now make that aid contingent on taking, resettling more Palestinians?
15:32We know that he's not averse to applying that kind of pressure. Egypt's foreign ministry, meanwhile,
15:39also issued a statement today stressing the need for rebuilding without moving the Palestinians
15:44out of the Gaza Strip. Egypt, of course, shares a border with Gaza and Israel. They are in a cold
15:49peace with Israel and they cooperate on security issues, but they have repeatedly said that they
15:55would not resettle Palestinians on its land. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, which is considered
16:02Trump's closest ally in the Gulf region, they weighed in quickly after Trump's comments,
16:07calling, they called their position firm, steadfast, unwavering and not subject to negotiation
16:13on the establishment of a Palestinian state. And they stressed that they will not establish ties
16:18with Israel without that. And that, of course, comes in the context of years of the United States
16:24diplomacy between, that led by the United States, between Israel and Saudi Arabia,
16:31its two most important Middle East allies, to try and normalise ties between them. But the Gaza war
16:36put a big spanner in the works and Saudi Arabia shelved that plan for now. Meanwhile, the Gulf
16:42states of the UAE and Bahrain, which, of course, signed historic normalisation ties with Israel
16:48before the Gaza war, they have yet to react to Trump's comments. And there's also been little
16:53reaction from Qatar, which has been the key mediator between Israel and Hamas since the
16:58war broke out, which perhaps suggests it's sticking to its diplomatic role for now, Nadia.
17:04All right, Emerald Maxwell, thanks very much indeed. So we've been looking there at a reaction
17:09from Palestinians, of course, but also reaction from some Arab countries. Now, what about reaction
17:15among Israelis today? Here's the perspective of a few in Jerusalem.
17:22I think it is a good idea to transfer the population in Gaza to other places,
17:27and this will be good for the residents themselves. They will receive a different
17:31education. Today, the education in Gaza is not good. It is against the Jews, against the whole
17:37world. And it is good for Israel, as there won't be terror there and there won't be everything that
17:44there is there today, all the rockets and all the tunnels. As someone who served eight months
17:51in Gaza, I think it's absolutely necessary to agree to Trump's plan to evacuate all the Arabs
17:56from there and build, well, something else, to renovate this place. God is great, but what's
18:02certain is that to purify this place will be excellent.
18:08Well, that's the view then of some citizens of Israel. How have Israeli politicians been
18:13reacting then to Trump's comments? Well, his words are being seen as a boon for the extreme
18:19right in Israel, as our Jerusalem correspondent, Noga Tanepolsky, now explains.
18:25They're playing into a number of things here. They're playing into the hands of Israel's
18:28extreme Jewish supremacist, overtly racist far right, such as former Minister Itamar Benvir,
18:36who was Prime Minister Netanyahu's Minister for National Security until he left the government
18:42to oppose the ceasefire, who already joined the congratulations of the other extremists this
18:48morning saying, yes, and this is the moment for us to declare sovereignty over the West Bank as well,
18:53as if everyone can just hand out pieces of Palestinian territory right now.
18:58In Israel, there's been a strange kind of, I would say, giggling, giddy response, even among
19:05those on the far right or veering towards mainstream who seem happy at the notion of
19:11just Gazans being gone. There is an acknowledgment at the same time that this is not a possible
19:19reality. We are hearing that from experienced diplomats such as Amira Oron, the former
19:24ambassador to Egypt, and others. But there is this strange giddiness among the extreme right wing.
19:31Of course, we should remember that at this very same time, Donald Trump and his team have made it
19:37completely clear, unmistakably clear, that the United States expects all of the terms of this
19:44ceasefire to be maintained and to be continued, which would mean the end of the war between Israel
19:50and Hamas. It would mean the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza. So the Israelis on the
19:57right wing and the rest of the Israeli government, they're going to have to swallow these red lines,
20:04what were for them until very recently, flat out red lines, if they want to proceed towards what I
20:10have to say does sound and feel a bit like a Trumpian provocation or policy. There's, of course,
20:19no method, no system in place to evacuate almost 2 million Gazans, and there's no one willing to
20:26take them. It also does not seem that they themselves want to leave. So we find ourselves
20:32in a real brouhaha created by what appears to be Donald Trump's dreams of seeing Gaza turned
20:41into a resort, possibly through investments by his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who is known to
20:47have advanced this notion of Gaza as a real estate opportunity, at least for the last few years.
20:54Noga Tanepolsky reporting for us there. Well, let's take a look then at the situation on the
21:00ground at the moment in Gaza after 15 months of intensive Israeli bombardment. The World Health
21:06Organization says more than 12,000 critically injured people now need to be evacuated for
21:12treatment. Hospitals in Egypt and in Jordan are ready to admit patients, but nobody can leave
21:19Gaza without permission from Israel. The process is slow and opaque, and injured people effectively
21:27are trapped. Siobhan Silk has this report.
21:33A life-saving flight for Habiba al-Askari. The two-year-old who lives with her family
21:38in Gaza is affected by a rare genetic condition that has cut off circulation to her limbs,
21:43severely damaging them. She couldn't get proper care for the normally treatable condition in Gaza,
21:51where 15 months of Israeli bombardments have devastated the health system,
21:55with fewer than half of the 36 hospitals partially functioning. For months, Habiba's
22:00mother was desperate to get her out of Gaza, but all evacuations have to be approved by Israel.
22:06The toddler got permission last month, but it was cancelled twice at the last minute.
22:11It's agonising for us. It's not how we feel, but it's agonising to watch the disappointment
22:18and the worry of a mother. The NGO Médecins Sans Frontières says Israel's criteria for
22:25medical evacuation are not clear, and permission can depend on who is accompanying the patient.
22:32We understood little by little that it's more easy with a female caretaker, it's easier with
22:40elderly and so on, but even this has been always quite difficult to understand.
22:46Unfortunately, we have seen a couple of cases like this, that unfortunately there is a first
22:53yes and then at the end the person cannot exit the country. Media reports about Habiba's situation
23:01helped launch a huge effort to get her out, with high-level officials in Jordan working behind the
23:06scenes. Finally, the green light came. On Monday, the Jordanian air force provided a medevac flight,
23:12and Habiba is now getting the treatment she needs in Jordan.
23:15But most patients have no access to high-level advocates, and according to the World Health
23:20Organization, 12,000 critically ill children and adults need to leave Gaza for medical care.