WASHINGTON: Benjamin Netanyahu hailed US President Donald Trump's widely criticized plan to displace Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip, saying he is willing to "do the job". "I think that President Trump's proposal is the first fresh idea in years, and it has the potential to change everything in Gaza," Netanyahu said in a Fox News interview. "All Trump is saying, 'I want to open the gate and give them an option to relocate temporarily while we rebuild the place physically'," Netanyahu said. Trump "never said he wants American troops to do the job. Guess what? We'll do the job," Netanyahu declared.

Netanyahu said Trump's plan was a departure from the "same old, same old, same old -- we leave, Gaza becomes again occupied by these terrorists who use it as a base to attack Israel... It doesn't go anywhere." "I think we should pursue it," he added, cautioning that "the real issue" was finding a country that would agree to take in displaced Gazans. Netanyahu also said that displaced Palestinians would have to "disavow terrorism" to be allowed to return to Gaza. "Everybody describes Gaza as the biggest open-air prison in the world," Netanyahu said. "Get the population out, allow them to leave. Not forcible eviction, not ethnic cleansing -- getting people out of what all these countries and all these do-gooders say is an open-air prison. Why are you keeping them in prison?" - AFP