US officials walk back some Trump statements on Gaza takeover

Officials in Donald Trump's administration have walked back on comments he made promising to "take over" the Gaza Strip and expel the enclave's Palestinian population.

Trump's explosive comments were made during a news conference on Tuesday alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in which he suggested expelling Palestinians from Gaza, likely moving in American troops, and then developing the area as a “the Riviera of the Middle East” for tourists. 

However, during a news conference in Guatamala, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Trump had only proposed the reconstruction of the territory rather than claiming possession of it.

Similarly, Steve Witkoff, the US special envoy to the Middle East, reportedly told Republican senators at a closed-door lunch that Trump didn't "want to put any US troops on the ground, and he doesn’t want to spend any US dollars at all" on Gaza.

Trump's proposals have been greeted with outrage by the Palestinians, Arab states and most of the international community.

The Geneva Conventions, which both the US and Israel have ratified, prohibit the forcible relocation of populations.

Within hours of Trump's announcement, US ally Saudi Arabia rejected any attempt to displace Palestinians from their land and said it would not establish relations with Israel without establishment of a Palestinian state. 

While it did not directly refer to the president's remarks, the Saudi foreign ministry said it was reaffirming its "complete rejection of any infringement on the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, whether through Israeli settlement policies, annexation of Palestinian lands or attempts to displace the Palestinian people from their land".

Democratic Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian in the chamber, also condemned the announcement, saying: “Palestinians aren’t going anywhere.” 

“This president can only spew this fanatical bullshit because of bipartisan support in Congress for funding genocide and ethnic cleansing,” Tlaib wrote on X. “It's time for my two-state solution colleagues to speak up.”