Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman
When President Trump announced his proposal for the United States to take ownership of Gaza on Tuesday, he shocked even senior members of his own White House and government.
While his announcement looked formal and thought-out — he read the plan from a sheet of paper — his administration had not done even the most basic planning to examine the feasibility of the idea, according to four people with knowledge of the discussions, who were not authorized to speak publicly.
It wasn’t only the Americans who were scrambling; the announcement came as just as much of a surprise to Mr. Trump’s Israeli visitors. Soon before they walked out for their joint news conference on Tuesday, Mr. Trump surprised Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel by telling him he planned to announce the Gaza ownership idea, according to two people briefed on their interactions.
Inside the U.S. government, there had been no meetings with the State Department or Pentagon, as would normally occur for any serious foreign policy proposal, let alone one of such magnitude. There had been no working groups. The Defense Department had produced no estimates of the troop numbers required, or cost estimates, or even an outline of how it might work.
Unlike major foreign policy announcements with past presidents, including Mr. Trump, the notion of the United States controlling Gaza had never been part of a public discussion before Tuesday.
But privately, Mr. Trump had been talking about U.S. ownership of the enclave for weeks. And his thinking had accelerated, according to two administration officials, after his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, returned from Gaza last week and described the horrific conditions there.
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