How Palestinians in New York Feel About Trump’s Gaza Takeover Plan

Good morning. It’s Thursday. Today we’ll look at how Palestinian families in the New York area are reacting to President Trump’s proposal to take over Gaza. We’ll also learn about Mayor Eric Adams’s explanation for his health-related absence.

President Trump’s proposal this week for an American “takeover” of the Gaza Strip and the removal of its Palestinian population has horrified Palestinian families in the New York area, even if some of them are not surprised.

My colleagues Liam Stack, Katherine Rosman and Sharon Otterman reported on the reactions Wednesday. Noreen Rashid, 22, of Rockaway, N.J., said she had long feared that the United States or Israel might take over Gaza. Mr. Trump made the proposal during a White House news conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Tuesday.

Rashid said the president’s plan had made her reflect sadly on her last visit to see her relatives in Gaza, just one month before the war between Hamas and Israel began in October 2023.

“I saw the last of it, and the best of it,” she said. “Now I’m thinking about when I have children, and it’s an out-of-body experience to know they will never know Gaza — that it’s all going to be Trump villas.”

World leaders immediately opposed Trump’s plan, calling it a breach of international law and a threat to regional stability in the Middle East. On Wednesday, the administration tried to walk back some of the proposal, saying that Trump had not committed to sending U.S. troops to Gaza and that any relocation of Palestinians would be temporary.

But Nerdeen Kiswani, 30, the founder of the pro-Palestinian street protest group Within Our Lifetime, referred to the plan as “genocide and ethnic cleansing” and said she saw in Trump’s comments more of the same policies that have already displaced Palestinians for decades.

“Gaza has been systematically destroyed with American weapons,” she said in a text message, “and now the same forces responsible for that destruction are discussing its future as if Palestinians have no agency, no history, and no right to their own land.”

She continued, “The only relocation that should happen is Palestinians returning to their original homes in historic Palestine, as they have always demanded.”

The war in Gaza began after Hamas and other groups killed roughly 1,200 people and took 250 hostages during a surprise attack on Israel. Since then, Israel has displaced almost two million people, destroyed Gaza’s civilian infrastructure and killed more than 47,000 people, according to local health officials, whose count does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

Protests in support of Palestinians spread across the United States, particularly on the streets of New York City and on its college campuses, including Columbia University and New York University.

Rashid Khalidi, a professor emeritus of modern Arab studies at Columbia and author of “The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine,” said that Trump’s proposal “is so outlandish, not to speak of illegal and immoral, that it is utterly unrealizable.”

Many Palestinians in the United States said they felt a deep sense of foreboding about the effect Trump’s comments could have on the fragile peace deal that Trump and President Joe Biden were celebrating just over two weeks ago. Under the deal, Hamas has released Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. Negotiations over the cease-fire’s second phase only began on Tuesday.

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The latest Metro news

The mystery of Mayor Eric Adams’s absence last week has been solved. But not before another one arose.

The mayor had stepped back from most of his public duties for a few days as his spokesman said he wasn’t feeling well and needed some tests. But with no further details given, many New Yorkers wondered what was really going on.

On Wednesday, my colleague Jeffery C. Mays reported, Adams said he had undergone medical tests and been placed under anesthesia, which his staff said was for a colonoscopy. But while the mayor’s comments suggested the colonoscopy had occurred last week, the story changed after a reporter on social media questioned the timing.

A spokeswoman later said that the colonoscopy happened on Jan. 3, but that the mayor did undergo other tests last week, including an M.R.I.; a test for Helicobacter pylori, an infection that causes stomach ulcers; and other blood work.

METROPOLITAN diary

Nocturnal Ritual

Dear Diary:

A few times a week, I open my living room window before going to bed and lean out onto the fire escape to breathe in the night air and try to catch a glimpse of the moon.

Most people on my Chelsea block have drawn their curtains and switched off the lights, but some apartments glow like little lanterns.