Donald Trump’s truthfulness as well as his knowledge of Middle East geography has come under fresh scrutiny after the former president claimed to have been to Gaza – although there is no evidence of him ever visiting the war-torn Palestinian territory.
Trump raised eyebrows after the Republican nominee in November’s presidential election told Hugh Hewitt, a rightwing radio host, that he had been in the tiny coastal strip where more than 41,000 people have been killed and the majority of buildings badly damaged or destroyed in blistering Israeli military attacks responding to last year’s 7 October attack by Hamas. The Hamas attack killed 1,200 about Israelis and took about 250 hostage.
Asked by Hewitt if Gaza could be transformed into Monaco if properly rebuilt, Trump replied:
“It could be better than Monaco. It has the best location in the Middle East, the best water, the best everything. It’s got, it is the best, I’ve said it for years.
“I’ve been there, and it’s rough. It’s a rough place … before all of the attacks and before the back and forth what’s happened over the last couple of years.”
He went on: “I mean, they have the back of a plant facing the ocean, you know. There was no ocean as far as that was concerned. They never took advantage of it. You know, as a developer, it could be the most beautiful place – the weather, the water, the whole thing, the climate. It could be so beautiful. It could be the best thing in the Middle East.”
Hewitt did not challenge Trump’s assertion to have visited the territory, which had suffered substantial infrastructural damage in repeated clashes between Hamas, the militant group that has dominated it for years, and Israel even before the current war.
However, the New York Times said there was no record of Trump ever having gone there – either when he was president or before.
The paper quoted a campaign official, who said: “Gaza is in Israel. President Trump has been to Israel.”
In fact, Gaza has never been part of Israel, although some far-right members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s current coalition government have called for its annexation.
The territory was home to several thousand Jewish settlers until 2005, when the Israeli prime minister at the time, Ariel Sharon, withdrew them under a disengagement plan.
Asked by Axios to provide further explanation, Karoline Leavitt, a Trump campaign spokesperson, responded in an emailed statement that the former president “has been to Gaza previously”, although she did not say when.
Trump visited Israel as president in 2017, when he also travelled to Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank to meet Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president. Gaza and the West Bank are separate territories and about 25 miles apart at their closest point. They can only be reached from each other by travelling through Israel.
Trump’s comments on Gaza’s potential echo those made by his son-in-law Jared Kushner – a former adviser and Middle East envoy during his presidency – who was criticised for describing waterfront property in the territory as “very valuable” and suggesting that Israel remove civilians while cleaning it up.
Trump has made support for Israel a central plank of his campaign, although he has also drawn accusations of antisemitism by saying that Jewish voters “would have a lot to do with a loss” if he were to suffer defeat in next month’s election.
At an event in Florida on Monday commemorating the first anniversary of last year’s Hamas attack on Israel, he claimed antisemitism in US party politics was confined to the Democrats and did not exist in the Republican party.
His remarks overlooked the fact that he hosted Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist who has engaged in Holocaust denial, at his Mar-a-Lago club in 2022, along with the rapper Kanye West, who has also been accused of antisemitism.
The questions over Trump’s Gaza claims come as he is already under fire for spreading disinformation over the Biden administration’s response to Hurricane Helene, which has caused widespread destruction to south-eastern states in the US.