Trump Declares Annexation of Gaza, Controlled by U.S Military

This moment will go down in history as the most flagrant declaration of imperialist conquest in modern times. Standing side by side with Benjamin Netanyahu, a man wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, former U.S. President Donald Trump announced what can only be described as the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. With an air of unchecked arrogance, Trump proclaimed that the United States would “take over” Gaza, installing the U.S. military to “control it, rebuild it” and—most chillingly—turn it into an “international Riviera,” a playground for the world’s elite. But not for the Palestinians. Never for the Palestinians.

For those who still harbored illusions about what Netanyahu’s brutal war on Gaza was about, this press conference obliterated any doubt. The forced displacement, the relentless bombing, the destruction of hospitals, schools, homes, and entire communities—this was never about security. It was about erasure. It was about wiping Gaza off the map and replacing it with something that serves Western and Israeli interests. Trump, with his characteristic bombast, admitted as much, casually revealing that he had been calling neighboring countries, urging them to absorb the displaced Palestinians. A final solution to the so-called “Palestinian problem.”

The audacity of this announcement cannot be overstated. A U.S. president—who once floated the idea of annexing Canada, who mused about taking Greenland, who salivated over the Panama Canal—now declares the annexation of Gaza, as if he were a 19th-century colonial governor carving up the world with a pen and a smirk. And yet, there was no global outcry. No world leader rushed to denounce him. No emergency meetings at the UN. Instead, Netanyahu grinned, his work nearly complete. The ethnic cleansing of Gaza, wrapped in the language of “economic development,” had been rubber-stamped by the most powerful nation on Earth.

“We will own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangers, the unexploded bombs, and other weapons on the site,” Trump declared, as if the U.S. had not already been complicit in dropping many of those very bombs. “We will level the site, get rid of the destroyed buildings, and create economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the Middle East.” But which people? Certainly not the Gazans. Certainly not the survivors of this manufactured catastrophe.

The most horrifying moment of all came when Trump was asked directly: Will Palestinians live in this new “unbelievable” Gaza? His answer was vague, dismissive, unconvincing. He dodged, he muttered, he waved his hands—while Netanyahu smirked, the kind of smirk a man wears when he knows he has won. Mission accomplished. Gaza has been reduced to rubble, its people either dead or exiled, its land now open for business.

This is imperialism in its purest, rawest form. It is conquest without pretense, theft without shame. And it is happening in broad daylight, with the world watching in silence. What Trump has done is not just endorse the genocide of Palestinians; he has taken it one step further. He has placed the final nail in the coffin of Palestinian sovereignty, declared that their land belongs to someone else, and told the world that there is nothing anyone can do to stop it.

Who will oppose him? Who will stop this madness? If history is any guide, no one. The world, paralyzed by cowardice and complicity, will allow this to happen. The very institutions meant to prevent atrocities like this—the UN, the ICC, the so-called “international community”—will sputter and issue weak statements, but nothing will change. The Palestinian people, betrayed at every turn, will once again be left to fight alone.

And in the ruins of Gaza, beneath the dust and the bodies, the truth will remain: This was never about security. This was never about defense. This was about destruction. This was about conquest. And now, with Trump’s blessing, the final phase of the Nakba is underway.