UNITED STATES President Donald Trump has doubled down on his pledge to take control of Gaza.

Speaking on Sunday, President Trump said: “I’m committed to buying and owning Gaza. As far as rebuilding it, we may give it to other states in the Middle East to build sections of it. 

“Other people may do it through our auspices. But we’re committed to owning it, taking it, and making sure that Hamas doesn’t move back.”

Mr Trump added: “There’s nothing to move back into. The place is a demolition site. The remainder will be demolished.”

Ignoring the wave of worldwide opposition to his scheme, President Trump insisted that Arab nations would agree to take in Palestinians after speaking with him and insisted Palestinians would leave Gaza if they had a choice.

He claimed: “They don’t want to return to Gaza. If we could give them a home in a safer area — the only reason they’re talking about returning to Gaza is they don’t have an alternative. When they have an alternative, they don’t want to return to Gaza.”

The two main candidates in the German elections later this month both slammed Mr Trump’s plan. 

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz described President Trump’s scheme as a “scandal” in a pre-election debate Sunday. 

Mr Scholtz, a social democrat, said: “The relocation of populations is unacceptable and against international law,” he added in the debate on ARD and ZDF public television. 

His main challenger Christian Democrat Friedrich Merz agreed with Mr Scholtz. He said: “It is one of a whole series of proposals coming from the US administration that are certainly disconcerting, but one has to wait and see what is really meant seriously and how it is implemented — there’s probably a lot of rhetoric in this.”

Meanwhile in east Jerusalem Israeli police have raided a long-established Palestinian-owned bookstore, detaining the owners Ahmed and Mahmoud Muna, and confiscating books about the decades-long conflict. 

Israeli police said the books incited violence.

The Educational Bookshop was established over 40 years ago and is a hub of intellectual life in east Jerusalem.

According to May Muna, Mahmoud’s wife, the soldiers picked out books with Palestinian titles or flags, “without knowing what any of them meant.”

She said they used Google Translate on some the Arabic titles to see what they meant before carting them away.