Editor’s Note: This page is a summary of news on the Israel-Hamas war for Wednesday, March. 20. For the latest news on the conflict in the Middle East, view our live updates file on the war for Thursday, March 21.
Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and former Middle East adviser, is standing by statements he recently posted on social media that included lauding Gaza’s valuable “waterfront property” and suggesting 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 Bejamin 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 politcians have advocated for the mass relocation of Palestinians outside of Gaza, battered by more than five months of war, to make way for Israeli settlers. That call has drawn outrage from most of the Arab world.
In a post Tuesday, Kushner said he…
