US President Donald Trump says Gaza will be “turned over” to the US at the end of the Israeli war on the enclave, but that “no soldiers by the US would be needed.”

Trump’s announcement in a social media post on Thursday adds fresh confusion to his earlier proposal to transfer Palestinians out of Gaza and have the US take over the war-ruined enclave.

“The Gaza Strip would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting,” Trump said in an early morning post. “No soldiers by the US would be needed! Stability for the region would reign!!!”

In his new post, he claimed that the Palestinians would have “a chance to be happy, safe, and free” under his relocation scheme which envisions them being displaced to Egypt and Jordan

“The US, working with great development teams from all over the World, would slowly and carefully begin the construction of what would become one of the greatest and most spectacular developments of its kind on Earth,” Trump said.

US officials have made it clear that Washington would not foot the bill. Expressing that no US soldiers would be needed for the scheme, Trump claimed on Thursday that his actions would bring stability to the region.

US special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff reportedly told Republican senators at a closed-door lunch that Trump didn’t “want to put any US troops on the ground, and he doesn’t want to spend any US dollars at all” on Gaza.

Trump initially suggested that Palestinians could be permanently removed, before adding they would be able to live there, alongside others, after Gaza was “rebuilt”.

White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt addressed a reporter’s question on Wednesday, stating that she could not confirm whether Palestinians would be permitted to stay in the region.

Trump has asserted that Palestinians in Gaza needed to be permanently resettled in neighboring countries. Faced with international outcry, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio sought to qualify it, saying the idea was for the Gazans to leave the besieged territory for an “interim” period.

Israeli minister of military affairs Israel Katz on Thursday ordered the regime’s army to prepare a plan forcing the “voluntary departure” of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.

Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem on Thursday warned that Trump’s plan is a “declaration of intent to occupy” the Palestinian territory.

The Palestinian resistance group called for “an urgent Arab summit to confront the displacement” of Palestinians from Gaza, Qassem said in a statement.

Hamas’s spokesman condemned Trump’s statements as “absolutely unacceptable”.

“Gaza is for its people and they will not leave,” Qassem said. “We call for the convening of an emergency Arab summit to confront the displacement project,” he added.

“Trump’s remarks about Washington taking control of Gaza amount to an open declaration of intent to occupy the territory,” he said.

“We do not need any country to run the Gaza Strip and we do not accept replacing one occupation with another.”

The United Nations warned that “any forced displacement of people would be tantamount to ethnic cleansing.”

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a speech to a UN committee that deals with the rights of Palestinians that “at its essence, the exercise of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people is about the right of Palestinians to simply live as human beings in their own land.”

China said on Thursday that it opposes Trump’s push to transfer Palestinians out of Gaza. The country’s foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said that Beijing firmly supports the legitimate national rights of the Palestinian people.

“Gaza is the Gaza of Palestinians, an integral part of the Palestinian territory, not a political bargaining chip, let alone the target of a law of the jungle,” Guo said.