'No easy answers': Skeptical Republicans try to keep open mind on Trump's Gaza plan

President Trump’s declarations that the U.S. will take and rebuild Gaza and suggestion that Arab allies should take in displaced Palestinians are drawing muted pushback — and some doubt — from Senate Republicans.

Trump on Tuesday met with Jordan’s King Abdullah II and doubled down on his vision for the U.S. taking control of Gaza and making it the “Riviera of the Middle East,” while its residents move to Jordan and other Arab neighbors — an idea those neighbors oppose.

Senate Republicans are skeptical.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said Trump has “kick-started the conversation” and that he hopes “Jordan and [the United Arab Emirates] and Egypt and Saudi Arabia will get serious about providing some sort of multinational security force for Gaza.”

“His envoy said that the president doesn’t favor using American troops and he doesn’t favor spending a dime of American money,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) told The Hill. “I take from that that it’s probably more of a thought experiment.”

Shortly after his meeting at the White House, meanwhile, Abdullah reiterated his country’s “steadfast position against the displacement of Palestinians” in Gaza and the West Bank, effectively pushing back against Trump’s plan.

“This is the unified Arab position,” he said in a statement. “Rebuilding Gaza without displacing the Palestinians and addressing the dire humanitarian situation should be the priority for all.”

Abdullah will meet Wednesday and Thursday with Republicans on Capitol Hill, where the Kingdom holds strong support from GOP lawmakers as they back continued U.S. military and financial assistance. Trump had threatened earlier this week to withhold aid from Jordan if the country did not accept Palestinians but appeared to backpedal on Tuesday after Abdullah agreed to take in roughly 2,000 sick children from Gaza.

“Egypt and Jordan have both been important allies and we need to continue working closely with both governments, and I’m confident we will,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Trump, meanwhile, is also changing the goal posts of a tenuous ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, which was painstakingly negotiated by the Biden administration.

From the Oval Office on Monday, Trump directed Hamas to release all remaining hostages it kidnapped from Israel during its Oct. 7 attack, or risk letting “all hell break out.”

“I assume that is a reference to the Israeli military with the enthusiastic support of the United States. But that is not a proposition Hamas should test,” Cruz said.

Hamas holds about 78 remaining hostages, alive and dead. The U.S.-designated terrorist group accused Israel of violating the terms of the ceasefire agreement that went into effect on Jan. 19 and said it would hold back releasing hostages until it received assurance from mediators of Israel’s commitment to the deal.

In a statement Tuesday, Hamas rejected Trump’s repeated calls for moving Palestinians out of Gaza but said it remained committed to the ceasefire deal.

“The Hamas Movement remains committed to the ceasefire agreement as long as the occupation [Israel] complies with it. This agreement was sponsored and guaranteed by the mediators (Egypt, Qatar and the United States), and witnessed by the international community,” Hamas said in a statement.

“What the occupation [Israel] has failed to achieve through aggression and massacres, it will not succeed in accomplishing through liquidation and displacement plans.”

A total of 33 hostages are supposed to be released as part of the first phase of the ceasefire deal that is expected to last until March 1.

The stakes of upholding the ceasefire are enormous. Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy for the Middle East, appeared on Capitol Hill last week to huddle with the Senate GOP. Witkoff earlier told reporters that talks started moving on to the second phase of the deal, which is supposed to include talking about ending the war between Israel and Hamas, transitioning to civil governance of the Gaza Strip and a pathway to a Palestinian state.

But Trump’s proposal for the U.S. to take over the Gaza Strip, evacuate the Palestinian residents living there and force Jordan and Egypt to take them in — or risk losing billions in aid — is throwing into question whether the president is looking to start from scratch in the region.

“This is a 4,000-year-old problem that is complicated. There are no easy answers and I think looking at different options, trying to keep open minds,” said Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), a Foreign Relations Committee member. “But this is one of the tough nuts to crack.”

A number of Republicans have made clear that however Gaza is rebuilt, it will indeed not be done with American resources despite the president’s initial remarks.

“I’ll make a wild, wild guess,” Cornyn said. “Ain’t gonna happen.”

The situation took another turn on Tuesday as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threw his full backing behind the president’s call to release the remaining hostages by noon on Saturday, saying that “intense fighting” would resume if they are not.

Netanyahu said he directed Israeli forces to amass inside and surrounding Gaza in preparation for restarting military operations. Such a move would shatter more than three weeks of relative calm for Gaza’s estimated population of 2 million — 90 percent displaced, all needing humanitarian assistance, and having suffered tens of thousands of casualties.

For Israelis, the fate of the hostages is unclear. A ceasefire provided the best opportunity to secure the release of those held by Hamas. Israeli military operations succeeded in freeing only a handful of people alive.

But Netanyahu endorsed Trump’s threat.

“If Hamas does not return our hostages by Saturday noon, the ceasefire will end, and the [Israel Defense Forces] will resume intense fighting until the final defeat of Hamas.”

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