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       Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel with President Trump at the White House on Tuesday.Credit...Tierney L. Cross for The New York Times

       Trump’s aides tried to walk back his Gaza takeover plan Middle East leaders and key U.S. partners around the world quickly opposed President Trump’s proposal to force Palestinians out of Gaza and take it over. Amid the global alarm, top administration officials sought yesterday to soften elements of Trump’s plan.

       Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested that Trump was proposing only to clear out and rebuild Gaza and not to take it over. Steve Witkoff, the special envoy to the Middle East, told Republican senators during a closed-door meeting that Trump “doesn’t want to put any U.S. troops on the ground, and he doesn’t want to spend any U.S. dollars at all” on Gaza, according to a senator.

       The Gaza proposal upended decades of international diplomacy and created a backlash in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia expressed its “unequivocal rejection,” Egypt’s Foreign Ministry said aid to Gaza would have to begin “without the Palestinians leaving,” and the king of Jordan warned against any attempt at displacement. Palestinians in Gaza expressed a mixture of condemnation and confusion.

       A U.N. spokesman said that “any forced displacement of people is tantamount to ethnic cleansing.” Experts said a U.S. takeover of Gaza would be a breach of international law.

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       Hurdles: Trump’s idea to turn Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East” would be time-consuming and extraordinarily costly. Here’s more on the significant obstacles it would face.

       Analysis: Trump’s plan appeared so unworkable that some experts saw it as a negotiating tactic.

       More on Trump A judge blocked Trump’s attempt to eliminate automatic U.S. citizenship for children born to undocumented or temporary immigrants on U.S. soil.

       The Kremlin said discussions were underway with the Trump administration about the possibility of holding peace talks to end the war in Ukraine.

       In the opening weeks of Trump’s second term, he has shown little respect for the rule of law.

       Trump’s foreign aid freeze leaves millions of people worldwide without H.I.V. treatment.

       The C.I.A. sent the White House a list of all employees the agency hired over the last two years to comply with an order to shrink the federal work force.

       Why is Elon Musk so fixated on a government bureau that most Americans have never heard of?

       A top Justice Department official accused the acting F.B.I. director and his top aide of “insubordination” for refusing to identify agents who investigated Jan. 6 rioters.

       America’s largest federation of unions is starting a campaign to push back on Musk’s purge of federal workers.

       Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law, will host her own show on Fox News.

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