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Shortly before the president said he would have to clear unexploded bombs to redevelop Gaza, he ordered all U.S.-funded demining groups globally to stop their work.
- Feb. 10, 2025, 1:28 p.m. ET
President Trump’s proposal to take over Gaza would have to overcome or ignore many serious obstacles, including that forcibly removing its entire population would be a violation of international law.
But aside from legal challenges, there is the hard fact that unexploded munitions litter the territory after months of Israeli bombardment, posing a lethal danger to anyone in Gaza for the foreseeable future.
In his remarks unveiling the idea last week, Mr. Trump suggested that he had thought about it. “We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site,” he said.
The president has said he might send the military to Gaza as an occupation force, but federal law prohibits U.S. troops from doing demining missions. Instead, that work falls to the State Department, which provides funding to nongovernmental organizations to do the job.
And that is where the White House has created an unforced problem for itself.
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On Jan. 25, the State Department issued a stop-work order to all of the nonprofit organizations it funds to find, remove and destroy unexploded munitions around the world. Many of those charities would almost certainly be called on to clear Gaza once the fighting stops.
