UK disagrees with Trump’s proposals for US takeover of Gaza, says Lammy | Gaza

David Lammy has made clear that the UK does not agree with Donald Trump’s proposal to remove Palestinians from Gaza and put the territory under US control, while avoiding directly criticising the president’s plan.

In a carefully worded response to a question at a press conference in Kyiv about whether Trump’s idea, which has been widely condemned as ethnic cleansing, would be a breach of international law, the British foreign secretary began by praising the US president for wanting to rebuild Gaza.

“Donald Trump is right,” Lammy said. “Looking at those scenes, Palestinians who have been horrendously displaced over so many months of war, it is clear that Gaza is lying in rubble.”

But he added: “We have always been clear in our view that we must see two states and we must see Palestinians able to live and prosper in their homelands in Gaza, in the West Bank. That is what we want to get to.

“That is why it’s important we move out of phase one of this hostage deal, to stage two and then to phase three and reconstruct Gaza. We will play our part in that support for reconstruction, working alongside the Palestinian Authority and Gulf and Arab partners. That’s the guarantee to ensure that there is a future for Palestinians in their home.”

Lammy’s comments, which came during a visit to Ukraine, emphasised the difficult position faced not only by the UK government but also by the leaders of other US allies: how to avoid offending a tariff-happy American president while making plain they could not support such an idea.

Trump, speaking on Tuesday evening at a joint press conference at the White House with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said Gaza could become the “Riviera of the Middle East”, and declined to rule out sending US troops to make it happen.

“The only reason the Palestinians want to go back to Gaza is they have no alternative,” the president said. “It’s right now a demolition site. This is just a demolition site. Virtually every building is down.”

Saying Palestinians could live out their lives in “peace and harmony” elsewhere, Trump added: “The US will take over the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it, too. We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site.”

Steve Reed, the UK environment secretary, asked earlier on Wednesday for Britain’s view of the idea, also praised Trump, saying the US president “deserves credit” for his role in securing a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. However, Reed also spelled out a very different view. “The UK government’s view is, and will remain, that Palestinians must be able to return to their homes and rebuild their shattered lives,” he told the BBC.