Palestinians must be allowed to rebuild, insists PM, as Trump unveils plan for takeover of Gaza

Palestinians must be allowed home, the prime minister said yesterday in response to Donald Trump's proposal to remove people from the Gaza Strip and take the territory under US control.

- Pippa Crerar Peter Walker Aletha Adu

Keir Starmer told the Commons during prime minister's questions that Palestinians "must be allowed to rebuild, and we should be with them in that rebuild on the way to a two-state solution".

The US president had suggested the "Riviera of the Middle East" could be created and said he did not think "people should be going back" to Gaza. Trump's idea has been widely condemned as ethnic cleansing because it would be a breach of international law.

While Starmer did not directly criticise the US president's plan, he said: "The most important issue on the ceasefire is obviously it's sustained, we see it through the phases, and that means that the remaining hostages come out, and the aid that's desperately needed gets into Gaza at speed and at the volumes that are needed.