Trump’s plan to expel Gazans from ‘uninhabitable’ enclave would ensure ‘better life,’ Middle East special envoy says

President Trump’s controversial plan to have the Palestinians clear out of the Gaza Strip is intended to ensure they have a “better life,” according to special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff.

Witkoff, Trump’s fellow real estate mogul, stressed Tuesday night that the war-torn Gaza Strip is “a dangerous place to live today.”

“Peace in the region means a better life for the Palestinians,” Witkoff, 67, told Fox News’ Sean Hannity Tuesday. “A better life is not necessarily tied to the physical space that you’re in today.

“A better life is about a better opportunity, better financial conditions, better aspirations for you and your family. That doesn’t occur because you get to pitch a tent in the Gaza Strip and you’re surrounded by 30,000 munitions that could go off at any moment.”

Trump stirred controversy Tuesday by suggesting that Gazans should be “resettled in areas where they can live a beautiful life and not be worried about dying every day.”

He then mused that the US should “take over” the Gaza Strip, build it back up, and transform it into a home for the “world’s people.”

Critics have argued, among other things, that displacing the roughly 2 million inhabitants of the densely populated Gaza Strip from their homeland would be a violation of human rights.

“If there are different places for them to live, let them make that choice,” Witkoff said Tuesday night.

“Gaza today is uninhabitable and will probably be uninhabitable for at least the next 10 to 15 years,” he argued earlier in his “Hannity” appearance. “That’s how much work has to be done there.”

Witkoff had played a key role in helping to broker a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas last month that saw the release of hostages held by the terror group for more than a year.

On Wednesday, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz explained that Trump’s proposal was intended to motivate Arab countries to present their own alternatives.

“He’s not seeing any realistic solutions on how those miles and miles of debris are going to be cleared,” Waltz told “CBS Mornings.” “I think it’s going to bring the entire region to come with their own solutions.”

The 47th president has dangled the prospect of clearing out the Gaza Strip before. Arab countries, particularly Egypt and Jordan have raised fears that if the Palestinians were pushed out, they wouldn’t be able to come back in the future.

Witkoff also defended Trump’s push for “maximum pressure” against Iran as a means of preventing them from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

“The beginning of that is maximum sanctions,” Witkoff said. “Hopefully, we don’t have to go past that. And beyond that, Sean, it’s not just a nuclear weapon, Iran has been the benefactor for Hamas, for Hezbollah, and now for the Houthis, and that has to end. And the president has said that.”