Former US President Donald Trump claimed he had visited Gaza, even though there is no evidence of such a trip, according to a report from the New York Times.
The comment was made during an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on the anniversary of the October 7 attacks carried out by Hamas, which controls Gaza.
During the interview, Hewitt reportedly asked Trump if Gaza could be rebuilt after its central role in the Israel-Hamas conflict. "Could someone make Gaza into something that all the Palestinian people would be proud of, would want to live in, would benefit them?” Hewitt asked.
Trump responded, “It has the best location in the Middle East, water, and everything. It’s got, it is the best, I’ve said it for years. 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,” he told Hewitt.
There is no documented evidence of Trump ever being in Gaza. In 2017, during his first year as president, Trump visited Israel and the West Bank, which is a separate territory located miles away from Gaza, where he met with the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas.