Kushner suggests Israel move Palestinians
House speaker considers an invite for Netanyahu
Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s sonin-law and former Middle East adviser, on Tuesday stood by statements recently posted on his social media that lauded Gaza’s valuable “waterfront property” and suggested Israel move civilians out while it “cleans up” the area.
“Gaza’s waterfront property, it could be very valuable if people would focus on building up livelihoods,” Kushner, who has a background in real estate, said in a February interview for Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. But he said the Palestinian focus instead had been on building tunnels and amassing munitions.
Kushner also said he believes Israel could move civilians from the crowded southern Gaza city of Rafah to the Negev desert in southern Israel so Israeli troops can “finish the job” of destroying Hamas. He acknowledged that, if Palestinians were removed from Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might not allow them to return. But he added that he was “not sure there’s much left of Gaza.”
Some far-right Israeli politicians have advocated for the mass relocation of Palestinians outside of Gaza to make way for Israeli settlers, a call that has drawn outrage from most of the Arab world.
In a post Tuesday, Kushner said he stands by his comments in February, which “expressed my dismay that the Palestinian people have watched their leaders squander decades of Western aid on tunnels and weapons.” The Palestinians must demand accountability from their leadership.
Kushner also said that Israel has worked hard to minimize civilian casualties, and he would oppose recognizing a Palestinian state now as part of a peace plan, saying it would “essentially be rewarding an act of terror.”
Israel launched its offensive in Gaza vowing to destroy Hamas after the group’s Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel left some 1,200 people dead and 250
AHMAD HASABALLAH/GETTY IMAGES
taken hostage. More than 31,800 Palestinians have been killed in the bombardment and offensive since. Much of northern Gaza has been leveled, and an international authority on hunger crises warned on Monday that 70% of the people there were experiencing catastrophic hunger and that famine was imminent.
Johnson considers PM invite
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, RLa., is considering inviting Netanyahu to address Congress after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., delivered a scathing speech criticizing the prime minister last week.
“It’s one of the things that we have in mind and we may try to arrange for that,” Johnson told reporters Wednesday. “I think it’s very important for us to show solidarity and support with Israel right now in their time of great struggle and we certainly stand for that position and we’ll try to advance that in any way we can.”
Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish U.S. official, blasted Netanyahu last week on the Senate floor, calling for Israelis to hold new elections to replace Netanyahu, saying the prime minister “no longer fits the needs of Israel after October 7” and is “an obstacle to peace.”
Blinken adds Israel to trip
Amid public disagreements between the two countries over the conflict, Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to Israel this week as part of his sixth urgent mission to the Middle East since the war began.
The State Department said the Israel stop would cap Blinken’s latest Mideast tour that started in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday and will continue in Egypt on Thursday. The top U.S. diplomat will be in Tel Aviv on Friday after talks with Arab leaders and foreign ministers in Jeddah and Cairo focused on the war in Gaza.
“In Israel, Secretary Blinken will discuss with the leadership of the government of Israel the ongoing negotiations to secure the release of all hostages,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said. “He will discuss the need to ensure the defeat of Hamas, including in Rafah, in a way that protects the civilian population, does not hinder the delivery of humanitarian assistance, and advances Israel’s overall security.”
Tensions between the U.S. and Israel over the prosecution of the Gaza war have been mounting for months over rising civilian casualties. And they have intensified as Netanyahu has repeatedly said he will ignore President Joe Biden’s warnings not to start a large-scale ground operation in the southern city of Rafah without credible plans to protect innocent Palestinians who have sought refuge there.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military announced Wednesday that three senior members of the Hamas emergency committees in the Rafah area were killed in an airstrike. The men were emissaries of the Hamas leadership in Rafah, helped the militant group’s military wing establish control and were responsible for terrorist activities of the “organization’s operatives in the field,” the military said.
Emergency committees are used by Hamas to maintain public order in Gaza municipalities.
Sayyid Qutb Hashash and Osama Hamad Dhahir were the heads of Hamas’s emergency committee in north and east Rafah areas. Hadi Abu al-Rous was the operations officer of the emergency committee. Another leading militant, Muhammad Awad al-Malalhi, was apparently wounded, the military said.
Protests in Israel, California
Videos on social media Wednesday showed anti-Netanyahu protesters chained together outside the Knesset being dragged away by police. The protesters were demanding elections be held. Netanyahu, who popularity cratered after the Hamas-led assault on Israel, has said elections now would distract from the war effort.
Dockworkers at Israel’s Eilat Port staged a protest Wednesday after the Histadrut labor federation revealed that about half the 120 employees face layoffs due to attacks targeting Red Sea shipping. The port was among the first to be affected when shippers began rerouting ships from the area to avoid the attacks by Yemen-based Houthi rebels.
In the U.S., 12 people were arrested Tuesday night after Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg tried to clear City Council chambers amid outbursts during a debate over his Gaza cease-fire resolution, police said. The resolution, opposed by some Jewish community leaders, was passed.
Contributing: The Associated Press