WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump, proposing a major shift in Middle East policy, called for the U.S. to take over the Gaza Strip and relocate roughly two million Palestinians to neighboring Arab countries. His goal, he said, is to turn the war-ravaged enclave into the "Riviera of the Middle East."

President Donald Trump on Tuesday said the United States “will take over” the Gaza Strip — possibly with the help of American troops — while the Palestinians who live there should leave, a stunning proposal that would dramatically reorient the Middle East and subject a population of more than a million to further displacement.

Gaza became the site of a bloody conflict between the Israel Defense Forces and Hamas, which medical journal The Lancet reported has caused more than 60,000 Palestinian deaths. Netanyahu called Trump the greatest ally in the Oval Office that Israel has ever had and seemed to support Trump's radical proposal to return the U.