President Donald Trump suggested in conversation with businessmen in Doha, Qatar, on Thursday that the United States should take on a major role in the rehabilitation of Gaza, turning it into a “freedom zone.”
The comments were not the first time that Trump proposed American coordination to reconstruct the devastated Palestinian territory after decades of rule by the genocidal terrorist organization Hamas, but they were the first time that he has done so in the Middle East, in a country that had hosted Hamas leadership for years. While the government of Israel has enthusiastically embraced American leadership in aiding Gaza, the Muslim countries surrounding the territory – particularly Egypt and Jordan, the countries most likely to be asked to take in Palestinian refugees – have aggressively rejected the proposal.
President Trump concluded his first international tour on Friday after his final stopped in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Trump made visits to Saudi Arabia and Qatar prior to those stops, signing a number of major foreign investment deals and engaging in conversations with those countries’ top leaders.
At an event with “business leaders” in Qatar, Trump told attendees that American officials were “working very hard in Gaza.” Gaza, under Hamas control since 2007, is in a state of acute humanitarian crisis as Hamas prevents civilians from leaving and loots critical humanitarian aid, leaving the captive population helpless. That crisis has been exacerbated as the war between Israel and Hamas continues; Israel invaded Gaza following the Hamas terrorist siege of the country on October 7, 2023.
“I have aerial shots where, I mean, there’s practically no building standing,” Trump said of Gaza. “It’s not like you’re trying to save something. There’s no building. People are living under the rubble of buildings that collapsed, which is not acceptable.”
Trump told the potential investors that his administration had come up with “very good” concepts to rebuild Gaza following the eradication of Hamas.
“Make it a freedom zone. Let the United States get involved and make it just a freedom zone,” he continued. “I’d be proud to have the United States have it, take it, make it a freedom zone.”
U.S. President Donald Trump (R) attends a business forum in Abu Dhabi on May 16, 2025. The United Arab Emirates is the third leg of Trump’s visit to the region, which has already taken him to Saudi Arabia and Qatar. (GIUSEPPE CACACE/AFP via Getty Images)
“Let some good things happen, put people in homes where they can be safe, and Hamas is going to have to be dealt with,” he continued.
Reports regarding the exchange did not state that Trump offered any specifics on what the Gaza “freedom zone” would look like or what the United States would do once the rubble of the war was cleared. The reports also did not suggest that Trump told the Qatari businessmen what Washington planned to do with the Palestinian population in Gaza during the reconstruction, though he has suggested that neighboring countries would have to take them in as refugees in past remarks.
Trump repeated his commitment to help rehabilitate Gaza in comments on Friday.
“We’re looking at Gaza. And we’re going to get that taken care of. A lot of people are starving,” Trump said in Abu Dhabi, the Emirati capital.
Trump had previously called for the establishment of an American-controlled Gaza “freedom zone” while meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House in April.
“If you take the people, the Palestinians, and move them around to different countries, and you have plenty of countries that will do that and you really have a freedom zone,” he explained, “a free zone where people aren’t going to be killed every day.”
Trump first publicly raised the potential of American control of Gaza in February, vowing that Washington would “do a good job with it.”
“We’ll love it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous bombs and other weapons on the site,” he asserted, “and get rid of the destroyed buildings [and] create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing.”
Trump said at the time that Gaza had the potential to become “the Riviera of the Middle East” and had “unbelievable” potential that was impossible to tap into so long as a jihadist terror organization possessed it. The president followed up those remarks by posting a bizarre video on Instagram, apparently created by artificial intelligence, of a hypothetical American Gaza. The images in the video showed a beachside paradise adorned with a giant golden statue of Trump surrounded by skyscrapers and featuring bearded belly dancers.
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While the Israeli government has embraced this idea, citing the failure of past attempts to bring prosperity and peace to the region, Trump’s suggestions caused alarm among Muslim Mideast nations. Saudi Arabia rapidly assembled an “informal brotherly gathering” in February to coordinate a regional response to Trump. The government of Egypt, the only other country besides Israel to border Gaza, announced that it would soon debut an alternative plan to rebuild Gaza at the exclusion of the United States.
In March, Cairo reportedly organized a $50 billion plan to rebuild Gaza in a way that would not require Egypt to host Palestinian refugees. The plan would move Gazans to designated “safe zones” and rebuild the Strip piecemeal, not allowing for a complete simultaneous construction of Gazan communities. The plan would also require significant investments from neighboring countries, which at press time they have not committed to providing.
