Trump will visit Israel, Gaza, Saudi Arabia and other places in Middle East, he says

US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he will visit Israel, Gaza, Saudi Arabia and other places in the Middle East, Anadolu has reported.

“I love Israel. I will visit there, and I’ll visit Gaza, and I’ll visit Saudi Arabia, and I’ll visit other places all over the Middle East,” he said during a news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House. “The Middle East is an incredible place, so vibrant. It’s just one of the really beautiful places and with great people. And I think a lot of bad leadership has taken place in the Middle East that’s allowed this to happen. It’s just terrible.”

He added: “And that includes on the American side, by the way. We should have never gotten in there a long time ago, spent trillions of dollars and created so much death.”

Trump’s remarks came as he hosted Netanyahu at the White House as the first foreign leader to visit since his inauguration, even though there is a warrant out for the Israeli leader’s arrest issued by the International Criminal Court.

Netanyahu’s visit came amid a fragile ceasefire in Gaza that took hold on 19 January, halting Israel’s genocidal war, which has killed 62,000 Palestinians and left the enclave in ruins since a cross-border incursion by Palestinian resistance movement Hamas on 7 October, 2023. Nearly 1,200 people were killed during the incursion, many of them by the Israel Defence Forces carrying out the controversial “Hannibal Directive”.

During the news conference, Trump also said that the US will “take over” the Gaza Strip and turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East”, a remark which came shortly after he suggested a permanent resettlement — the ethnic cleansing — of Palestinians outside Gaza.

READ: Trump’s ‘immoral’ Gaza plan includes ‘international crime’: UN Special Rapporteur