Some on Israel’s far-right want to return to Gaza and establish settlements there. Israel ordered a unilateral pull out in 2005, with 21 settlements dismantled and about 9,000 settlers evacuated by the army.
The far-right former national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said he commended Trump “for the initiative to transfer residents from Gaza to Jordan and Egypt.”
“One of our demands from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to promote voluntary emigration,” he wrote on X.
Trump’s comments came as displaced people were delayed from returning to their homes in northern Gaza after Israel accused Hamas of breaching the terms of a ceasefire deal.
“There is nothing there – there is no life, everything is demolished. But still to return to your land, to your home is a big joy,” one man anxiously waiting told the BBC.
In separate comments on Air Force One, Trump said he had ended former President Joe Biden’s hold on the supply of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel.
“They paid for them and they’ve been waiting for them for a long time,” he told reporters on Air Force One.
The US is by far the biggest supplier of arms to Israel, having helped it build one of the most technologically sophisticated militaries in the world.
But the war in Gaza led to renewed calls for the US to reduce or end arms shipments to Israel, because of the level of destruction caused by US weapons in the territory.
