Donald Trump falsely suggested that he has been to Gaza despite there being no record of his visit to the Palestinian city, the New York Times reports.
During an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on the one year anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, Trump said that Gaza could be “one of the best places in the world,” rivaling the European sovereign city-state of Monaco because of its Mediterranean coastal location, but Palestinians never took advantage of it.
“It could be better than Monaco,” Trump said. “It has the best location in the Middle East, the best water, the best everything.”
“It’s got, it is the best, I’ve said it for years,” he continued. “You know when — I’ve been there, and it’s rough. It’s a rough place, before the, you know, before all of the attacks and before the back and forth what’s happened over the last couple of years.”
The New York Times noted that there was no record of Trump ever having been to Gaza.
Trump visited Israel and traveled to the Israeli-occupied West Bank as president in 2017.
Asked to clarify Trump’s comment an anonymous campaign official insisted that, “Gaza is in Israel. President Trump has been to Israel.”
The Times noted that “The Gaza Strip is not part of Israel and has never been, though some Israelis have called for annexing it. It was occupied by Israel from 1967 until 2005, when Israel unilaterally withdrew from the territory.”
