Trump's Gaza 'riviera' should be for Gazans, says minister

by Robin MILLARD

U.S. President Donald Trump's idea to rebuild the Gaza Strip as a swanky riviera is unacceptable unless it is for Gazans themselves to live in, a Palestinian minister said on Friday.

"It's very good to rebuild Gaza as a riviera -- but with its people in it," said Palestinian minister of state for foreign affairs Varsen Aghabekian.

Trump's vision for Gaza involves the United States taking over the occupied Palestinian territory, resettling its Palestinian inhabitants elsewhere and transforming the war-ravaged strip into a riviera for "world people".

Aghabekian said displacing Gazans elsewhere was "unacceptable, by all means".

"Let it become a riviera," she said, "but for its people, who have been suffering for such a long time and deserve that their place becomes a riviera rather than a besieged place that smells of death."

Aghabekian was speaking to the United Nations correspondents' association ACANU during a visit to Geneva to address the UN Human Rights Council.

She said it would be a "natural development" for her Palestinian Authority to run the territory instead of the militant group Hamas in future.

"Palestinian national interests should supersede any other factional interests," she said.

"The running of Gaza would be through the legitimate authority of the state of Palestine and its arm the government. That's how we see it for the future of Gaza."

- 'Gaza-isation' of West Bank -

Hamas called on Friday for international pressure on Israel to enter the next phase of a ceasefire between them that has largely halted the war in Gaza, as negotiations were resuming in Cairo.

The fragile ceasefire, which came into effect on January 19, "has to be maintained at any cost", said Aghabekian.

The ceasefire has seen the release of Israel hostages from Gaza, with Hamas staging elaborate handover ceremonies, and Palestinian prisoners from Israeli detention.

Aghabekian said hostages should be treated with respect and within the law.

"We would hope that there would be no more exhibitions of such parades in the future and that the release of the rest of the hostages and moving into the second phase takes place smoothly," she said.

Hundreds of Palestinians, some kept in Israeli jails for years, have been freed in the West Bank under the ceasefire.

AFP

The war-devastated occupied territory is home to more than two million Palestinians

"These people need a lot of rehabilitation. They need to integrate into a society that is already struggling and suffering, so there are a lot of issues of concern," Aghabekian said.

Israel's military began a major raid against what they said were Palestinian militants in the West Bank over a month ago, in the longest continuous offensive in the occupied territory in two decades.

"The situation on the West Bank is extremely volatile," Aghabekian said.

"What we are being threatened with is the Gaza-isation of the West Bank, which means that people are afraid that the model that has been exercised on the Gaza Strip -- the genocidal, atrocious, brutal attacks -- are transferred to the West Bank."

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© Agence France-Presse