Former White House advisor calls for moving Palestinians out of Gaza

Israel should move civilians from the Gaza Strip to the Negev desert in southern Israel, said former White House advisor Jared Kushner.

In an interview on March 8 at Harvard University, Kushner, former US President Donald Trump's son-in-law, said if he were in charge of Israel, "his number one priority" would be getting civilians out of Gaza's southern city of Rafah and that "with diplomacy," it could be possible to get them into Egypt, according to a report by Britain's Guardian newspaper.

"But in addition to that, I would just bulldoze something in the Negev, I would try to move people in there," he said.

"I think that's a better option, so you can go in and finish the job," he added.

Praising the "very valuable" potential of Gaza's "waterfront property," Kushner suggested that Israel should remove civilians while it "cleans up" the Strip.

"It's a little bit of an unfortunate situation there, but from Israel's perspective, I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up," he was quoted as saying by the Guardian.

"But I don't think that Israel has stated that they don't want the people to move back there afterwards," he added.