Saudi press slams Trump bid to ‘take over’ Gaza

The headlines across Saudi Arabia this week have been, by all accounts, as “firm and unwavering” as the kingdom’s official position on Gaza, rejecting outright any normalisation process with Israel without a Palestinian state in the equation.

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday, alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told reporters that Riyadh no longer has the precondition of a Palestinian state in order to open up diplomatic relations with Israel.

A short time later, Trump made the stunning announcement that the US would expel Gaza’s residents to nearby countries and then “take over” the enclave and turn it into a beach resort.

Within minutes, at 4am local time, Saudi Arabia issued a statement rejecting the entire premise.

“The Palestinian state is not the subject of negotiation or concessions,” read the headline in Saudi’s Al-Watan newspaper, citing the foreign ministry.

The paper detailed what it described as a “fixed” Saudi position, whereby there must be a Palestinian state alongside Israel for “possible” normalisation, suggesting that an open Saudi-Israeli relationship is – even then – not guaranteed.

The kingdom, Al-Watan said, “does not accept bargaining or auctions”.

Saudi Arabia stands with the Palestinian people and against any attempt to “liquidate” their cause, the paper said.

“The Palestinian state is not the subject of negotiation or concessions.”

Al-Sabaq’s coverage came in the form of an open letter that insisted the kingdom will “not soften” its approach in regard to Palestine.

“To whom it may concern: Saudi Arabia’s leadership and people will reject any attempts from here or there, to impose a new reality,” the paper said. “Saudi leadership and its citizens will see that failure to support [the Palestinian] cause [as] an outright betrayal and unjustified public conspiracy, and [it] will not be tolerated by history.”

“There is a waste and distraction of sincere efforts to resolve the Palestinian issue,” it concluded.

Al-Bilad splashed the story across the front page, writing that there is a “categorical rejection of displacement and annexation of land”.

The paper pointed to similar condemnations from the Palestinian Authority, Egypt and Jordan, and their praise of the Saudi commitment to a Palestinian state as part of the 30-year-old “two-state solution” premise.

While the Saudi foreign ministry stayed away from calling out Trump by name, some of the national coverage took a different approach.

On the Saudi news site Okaz, columnist Hamoud Abu Taleb directed his ire directly at the US president with the headline, “A little reason, Mr President.”

“Trump believes that countries are no different from his Mar-a-Lago resort and can be taken over in deals, and if necessary by force,” Abu Taleb wrote.

Calling Trump “reckless”, he wondered “when a referendum was held for the people of Gaza, when he says that they would very much like to leave, or how he will force them to leave when he says that they have no alternative but to leave”.

“Appropriation and invasion,” he said, only take the world back to a time before the formation of the United Nations and international law.

While many Palestine advocates have criticised the kingdom for not using more of its leverage to take a tougher line with the US and Israel throughout the 15-month-long Israeli assault on Gaza, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman did eventually refer to Israel’s actions as “genocide” in a speech at a joint summit by the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Conference in November 2024.

The US has tried to get Saudi Arabia to normalise relations with Israel since Trump’s first tenure, when the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco opened up relations with Israel. Saudi Arabia has so far remained committed to only doing so if a Palestinian state is part of the equation.

Trump has mentioned several times that he plans to get a normalisation deal done during his second presidency, but the recent plan floated by the president has only pushed Saudi Arabia to reiterate its previous stance.