Palestinian Reaction to President Trump's Gaza Takeover Comment. And- Gaza's Police.
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Today on State of the World, Palestinians assess President Trump's U.S.-Gaza takeover ambitions and on patrol with Gaza's police force. You're listening to State of the World from NPR, the day's most vital international stories, up close where they're happening. It's Thursday, February 6th. I'm Christine Arismith.

President Trump surprised allies and enemies alike this week when he called for the U.S. to take over Gaza. Trump made the remarks during a White House visit with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Trump said he wanted to relocate Gaza's around 2 million people. And he also promised some kind of announcement about another big Palestinian zone, the West Bank.

That's where NPR's Kat Lonsdorf is, in the city of Ramallah. She told NPR's Steve Inskeep about what she's hearing from people there. So a lot of people, when I asked them about Trump's comments, started kind of smirking and basically saying, you know, I'll believe it when I see it. But a few people I talked to did admit that Gaza is in ruins, people there don't have proper living conditions, and that something needs to be done. Here's Ahmed Habib. He's a pharmacist in Ramallah.

But he's originally from Gaza. He still has a lot of family there. He told me all I care about is if people there have food, have milk, he says. People in Gaza deserve to live. I don't care where Trump wants to put us if they can just have a good life.

But other Palestinians out here I talk to point out that Gaza is Palestinian land and that even if they think Trump's plan is not realistic, talk of moving people from that land is very emotional and unsettling. And of course, the conflict over the land is central to the area where you are. You're outside of Gaza. You're in a much larger land area, the West Bank. You have millions of Palestinians there. You have Israelis.

Israelis who have founded settlements there and taken control of large parts of the West Bank. So what are people thinking and what is actually going on on the ground in the West Bank?

Yeah, I mean, you have to remember that the backdrop to all of this right now is that the Israeli military is still conducting a very big operation through many of the cities in the northern part of the West Bank. Israel launched this operation just two days after the ceasefire in Gaza went into effect. And they've said that this one is different from past operations. For example, Defense Minister Israel Katz announced that Israeli troops are going to remain in the Jenin refugee camp. That's the epicenter of the fighting. This hasn't happened before. It'd be a big shift in Israeli policy.

For months, Palestinians in the West Bank that I've been talking to here have told me that they've been worried that Israel's military focus might soon be moving from Gaza to them and ultimately that Israel might try to take more land here. Well, let's talk about that because Trump mentioned the West Bank as well when he dropped this surprise proposal for the United States to own Gaza.

which the administration has walked back to some extent since, he also said that in the next few weeks he'd be saying something about the West Bank. People must be wondering what that something is going to be. Yeah, last night I met Adil Abu Majd. He's a chef in Ramallah. He's originally from Jenin, where the Israeli military is focused right now. He left a couple months ago. And he told me he's paying close attention to what Trump is saying. He said,

He said what Trump said about Gaza empowers Israel to do whatever they want, to take the land that they want. And he thinks annexation could be a real possibility here in the West Bank. After Trump was elected last November, several far right Israeli ministers commented that this might now be the time for Israel to move on West Bank annexation.

You know, I should point out that all of this would be illegal under international law. But Trump also appointed key people in his administration who have said that they would support Israeli annexation. So given Trump's Gaza statements and his planned announcement about the West Bank in the future, all of this has people here pretty nervous. That's NPR's Kat Lonsdorf in Ramallah in the West Bank. She spoke to NPR's Steve Inskeep.

Now, President Trump also said this week that he's working with Israel's leadership to ensure that Hamas, the group that launched a deadly attack on Israel in 2023, is eliminated. This was Israel's aim during the war, and it included Gaza's police force in its list of targets. But as NPR correspondent Aya Batraoui in Dubai and producer Anas Baba in Gaza report, the

Following implementation of the ceasefire, Gaza's police are now back on the streets. This is the sound of life in Gaza these days, without the terrifying boom of deadly Israeli airstrikes. Instead, the mundane sound of traffic police fills the streets.

Here's Anas Baba describing the scene. This is the whistle of the traffic police in Khan Yunis city after the deployment for the first time ever in the streets of Khan Yunis while they are wearing their official uniform. You can see that the police here is totally ready. They are in every roundabout, in every junction.

This humdrum scene in most corners of the world is anything but in Gaza. That's because police were targeted by Israel in the war. The police say more than 1,400 officers were killed out of a force of around 9,000 before the war. What their presence on the streets now means depends on who you ask. Ahmed Al-Attar was an accountant in Gaza, but he became an armed merchant during the war, selling contraband cigarettes.

He says he was forced to carry a gun and hand grenades to protect himself from armed gangs robbing people and stealing food aid off UN trucks. But now, he says he doesn't even carry a small blade on him, just cash.

That's because police are back on the streets in full uniform. Like other people in Gaza NPR spoke to for this story, Al-Attar praises the local police force and says he supports their ongoing crackdown on looters.

Israel says it was the police that were stealing aid in order to benefit Hamas and acknowledges targeting them across Gaza. Their rank or whether they had direct ties with Hamas seemed to make little difference. Lieutenant Colonel Haitham Hamdan is the deputy police chief for Boreij in central Gaza. He says his home was targeted by Israeli airstrikes, killing his father, brother and aunt. He says around 100 police officers were killed in Israeli attacks in just Boreij alone.

But he says neither he nor the police force follow Hamas or any Palestinian faction. Hamdan says the Palestinian police come from all corners of society. Naomi Newman, a visiting fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, says Israel sees the police force in Gaza as an arm of Hamas that helps it stay in power.

She was the head of the research unit at the Israeli intelligence agency Shin Bet. I asked her what she makes of Gaza's police on the streets again. It's say only one thing, that Hamas still have a foothold in Gaza Strip. Hamas militants have also appeared on the streets since the ceasefire. Here's Newman again. We need to show the people that Hamas is not the solution. And this didn't happen. She says Israel destroyed much of the group's fighting capabilities and killed its senior leadership.

but not its influence in Gaza. The spokesman for Gaza's police, Colonel Mohamed Abdel Nasser Al-Zarka, says they're a civil institution that has nothing to do with Hamas's militant wing. There's also a dividing line between their work and that of another branch of Gaza's interior ministry, the feared internal security force known as Al-Amn al-Dakhli, that goes after Hamas critics and people collaborating with Israel.

Al-Zarqa says his officers worked throughout the war in plainclothes, helping families reunite with lost kids, distributing aid in schools where people sheltered, and resolving disputes. Independent political analyst Riham Aouda from Gaza says policemen who were targeted by Israel are needed now, no matter who governs the territory. Because you can't leave the strip empty without any security.

And while there are people in Gaza who don't support Hamas, the return of the police appears to have broad public support. Aya Batraoui, NPR News Dubai, with Anas Baba in Gaza. That's the state of the world from NPR. Thanks for listening.