Trump says US should 'take' Gaza and turn it into 'freedom zone'
President Donald Trump said on Thursday he wanted the United States to "take" Gaza and turn it into a "freedom zone", as the Israel-Hamas war rages on in the Palestinian territory.
"I have concepts for Gaza that I think are very good, make it a freedom zone, let the United States get involved and make it just a freedom zone," the US leader said in Qatar, adding: "I'd be proud to have the United States have it, take it, make it a freedom zone."
President Donald Trump on Thursday visited a US base installation at the centre of American involvement in the Middle East as he used his four-day visit to Gulf states to reject the "interventionism" of America's past in the region.
US President Donald Trump attends a breakfast with business leaders in Doha on Thursday. Agence France-Presse
In other parts of the Middle East violence flared in the West Bank and Gaza. A hospital in southern Gaza says 54 people have been killed in overnight airstrikes on the city of Khan Younis with a pregnant Israeli woman killed even as the international rights group, Human Rights Watch, said that Israel's plan to seize Gaza, remain in the territory and displace hundreds of thousands of people "inches closer to extermination."
Trump plans to address troops at Qatar's al-Udeid Air Base, which was a major staging ground during the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and supported the recent US air campaign against Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis.
The president has held up Gulf nations like Saudi Arabia and Qatar as models for economic development in a region plagued by conflict as he works to entice Iran to come to terms with his administration on a deal to curb its nuclear programme.
The President also met business leaders in Qatar before heading to Abu Dhabi.
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