(TNND) — President Donald Trump is doubling down on his position that the U.S. should take ownership of the Gaza Strip and displace the Palestinians living there before redeveloping the territory over a course of years.

“Think of it as a big real estate site, and the United States is going to own it and will slowly, very slowly, we're in no rush, develop it,” Trump said this weekend abord Air Force One. “We're going to bring stability to the Middle East, to a totally war-torn part of the Middle East.”

Trump first mentioned the idea of the U.S. taking ownership of Gaza when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Washington last week.

He again told reporters this weekend that he’d like to move all the Palestinians in Gaza to other countries and treat Gaza as an American-owned real estate development.

Trump told Fox News’ Bret Baier that he’d work with other Middle East countries to build permanent “beautiful communities” for the displaced Palestinians.

“I think I could make a deal with Jordan. I think I could make a deal with Egypt. You know, we give them billions and billions of dollars a year,” Trump said.

He said it would take years for Gaza to once again become inhabitable, Trump told the Fox News host.

“Think of it as a real estate development for the future,” Trump said. “It would be a beautiful piece of land.”

If the U.S. wants to acquire Gaza, then who owns it now?

“It's very complicated,” Middle East expert Gordon Gray said Monday.

Gaza is a 140-square-mile territory bordering Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea.

Israel was established in 1948.

Egypt controlled Gaza from the late 1940s to the late 1960s.

Israel controlled the territory after that, until it withdrew its military forces and its settlements in 2005.

Hamas, the terrorist group that attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, rose to power in Gaza in 2006.

Now, following more than a year of war between Israel and Hamas, Gaza is controlled by Israel’s military. But Hamas still has a presence there.

And the people who live there are Palestinian.

“If you ask members of Netanyahu's far-right coalition, they'll say Israel owns it,” said Gray, a former U.S. ambassador to Tunisia who is now teaching at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. “If you ask Palestinians, they'll say it's Palestinian territory.”

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said last week that, “Any durable peace will require tangible, irreversible and permanent progress toward the two-state solution, an end to the occupation, and the establishment of an independent Palestinian State, with Gaza as an integral part.”

A UN spokesman also said any forced displacement of the Palestinian people from Gaza, as Trump’s plan would include, “is tantamount to ethnic cleansing.”

Gray said Netanyahu would likely welcome U.S. ownership of Gaza.

Though Gray said most of the world would frown on the move.

Gray said Israel would benefit from the U.S. taking on the burden of rebuilding Gaza as well as the security presence the Americans could provide.

But Gray didn’t think taking over Gaza would be a good move for the U.S.

“It would be a negative for U.S. interests to see this plan implemented,” he said.

The forced displacement of Palestinians would generate ethical concerns, Gray said.

Then, there are challenges with the practical relocation of so many Palestinian people.

Egypt's economy is in a “freefall,” Gray said. And Egypt has made it clear that it doesn’t want the Palestinians to relocate there.

Jordan also has a fragile economy, and Palestinian relocations there would be very politically destabilizing, Gray said.

Saudi Arabia has no incentive to accept Palestinian refugees, he said.

The U.S. risks damaging relations with all three Middle Eastern countries if it pushes the Palestinian refugees upon them, Gray said.

And Gray said Americans aren’t likely to support the likely “incredible” taxpayer costs to rebuild Gaza or the idea of U.S. troops on the ground in the territory.