COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) Jared Kushner , Donald Trumps former White House adviser and his son-in-law, praised the very valuable potential of Gazas waterfront property, suggesting that Israel should remove civilians while it cleans up the area.

Gazas waterfront property, it could be very valuable, if people would focus on building up livelihoods, Kushner said in an interview dated Feb. 15 , posted earlier this month on the YouTube channel of the Middle East Initiative, a program of Harvard Universitys Kennedy School of Government, and reported first on Tuesday by The Guardian. If you think about all the money thats gone into this tunnel network and into all the munitions, if that would have gone into education or innovation, what could have been done?

Its a little bit of an unfortunate situation there, but I think from Israels perspective, I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up, Kushner added. But I dont think that Israel has stated that they dont want the people to move back there afterwards.

Responding Tuesday on X to those dishonestly using selected parts of his remarks, Kushner posted a video of the entire interaction, saying he stood by his comments and believe the Palestinian peoples lives will improve ONLY when the international community and their citizenry start demanding accountability from their leadership.