These Are the Major Obstacles to Trump’s Gaza Plan

President Trump’s brazen proposal to move all Palestinians out of Gaza and make it a U.S. territory sent shock waves around the world, where it was welcomed by Trump loyalists and members of Israel’s far right; rejected by American allies and adversaries alike; and criticized by experts as a breach of international law.

Here’s what we know about Mr. Trump’s idea for mass resettlement, and the significant obstacles it will face.

The proposal

Mr. Trump had floated the idea of Palestinians leaving Gaza multiple times since taking office last month. His suggestion that they could be moved to Egypt and Jordan was rejected last week by those countries, along with a broad group of Arab nations.

On Tuesday evening, the president went even further. Speaking alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel at the White House, Mr. Trump said the United States intends to seize control of Gaza, displace the Palestinian population living there and turn the devastated coastal enclave into “the Riviera of the Middle East.”

But he did not say how exactly he planned to do that — offering little detail on the logistics or extensive political maneuvering that would be required.

Regional complexity

A mass relocation of Gaza’s roughly two million inhabitants is a politically explosive idea in a region with a long and bloody history of forced resettlement.

While Mr. Trump framed the matter as a humanitarian imperative and an economic development opportunity, he effectively reopened a geopolitical Pandora’s box with far-reaching implications for the Middle East. Control over Gaza has been one of the major flash points of the Arab-Israeli conflict for decades — and to Palestinians and their allies, Mr. Trump’s proposal would constitute ethnic cleansing.

Many Gazans are descendants of Palestinians who were forced out of their homes during the wars surrounding Israel’s founding in 1948, a displacement that came to be known around the Arab world as the Nakba, or catastrophe. Now Mr. Trump is suggesting that they be displaced again — insisting that Palestinians would welcome it because “they’re living in hell” in Gaza.

“I would think they would be thrilled,” he said.

But the internationally backed Palestinian Authority rejected President Trump’s proposal, as did Hamas, which has ruled in Gaza for most of the past two decades and has begun re-establishing control there since a cease-fire deal with Israel took effect last month.

“Our people in Gaza will not allow for these plans to come to pass,” Sami Abu Zuhri, a senior Hamas official, said in a statement.

The cost

Mr. Trump likened his idea about displacement to the New York real estate projects on which he built his career. “If we could find the right piece of land, or numerous pieces of land, and build them some really nice places with plenty of money in the area, that’s for sure,” he said. “I think that would be a lot better than going back to Gaza.”

Where that money would come from, however, remains to be seen. Mr. Trump suggested that other countries in the region could finance the resettlement, but he offered no details.

He also did not say who would finance and build the gleaming and modern “Riviera” he was envisioning, either. Mr. Trump again suggested that other countries would pay for the reconstruction of Gaza — a project his Middle East envoy recently said would take 10 to 15 years — but also said he foresaw “a long-term ownership position,” without explaining what that meant.

The foreign ministry of Egypt, a key U.S. partner, said in a statement that aid and recovery programs for Gaza must begin “without the Palestinians leaving.” And King Abdullah II of Jordan on Wednesday rejected any attempt to displace Palestinians and annex their land, according to the Jordanian royal court.

The legality

Mr. Trump left a number of other basic questions unanswered, like how a U.S. takeover of Gaza would be enacted, and whether the use of force would be required. He conceded that American troops might be necessary.

But experts say that his proposal would unquestionably violate international law.

The Geneva Conventions — which both the United States and Israel have ratified — prohibit the forcible relocation of populations. Forced deportation or transfer of a civilian population is defined as a violation of international humanitarian law, a war crime and a crime against humanity.

It would be a further, severe violation for the United States to permanently take over the territory of Gaza, experts say. The specifics of that violation would depend partly on whether Palestine is considered a state, according to Marko Milanovic, a professor of international law at the University of Reading in England. The United Nations recognizes Palestine as a “permanent observer state” and 146 out of 193 U.N. member states recognize Palestinian statehood, but the United States does not.

The prohibition on one state annexing all or part of another state’s territory is one of the most important, foundational principles of international law. “There’s a clear rule,” Professor Milanovic said. “You cannot conquer someone else’s territory.”

It is rare for states to violate that rule. When they have, as in the case of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the response has been widespread global condemnation.

That could help explain why, by Wednesday afternoon, the Trump administration appeared to be trying to soften some of the president’s more problematic suggestions.

Speaking to reporters in Guatemala City during a trip to Latin America, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Mr. Trump was only proposing to clear out and rebuild Gaza — not claim indefinite possession of the enclave.

“The only thing president Trump has done — very generously, in my view — is offer the United States’ willingness to step in, clear the debris, clean the place up from all the destruction,” Mr. Rubio said, so that “then people can move back in.”

It was an idea, Mr. Rubio added, that “people need to think about seriously.”