The United States announced plans yesterday for a "New Gaza," which would be built from the ground up and include residential towers, data centers and seaside resorts, part of President Donald Trump's efforts to push forward a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that has been shaken by frequent violations.
Trump used the ceasefire as a springboard for a broader "Peace Committee" initiative, which aims to resolve conflicts around the world.
After hosting a signing ceremony for the Board in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday, Trump called on his son-in-law Jared Kushner to present development plans for Gaza, whose densely populated cities and towns are now in ruins after two years of war.
“We initially toyed with the idea of a free zone and then a Hamas zone,” Kushner told the Davos audience, referring to Trump’s early plans to rebuild Gaza, where almost the entire population of about two million people is internally displaced. “And then we said, you know what? Let’s just plan for an incredible success.”
Kushner presented the audience with a slide show depicting a “master plan” for what he called the “New Gaza,” depicted on color maps with areas reserved for housing development, data centers, and industrial parks.
The slides included images of the Mediterranean coast covered in glittering towers resembling those in Dubai or Singapore. They suggested that the reconstruction would begin in Rafah in the south, an area under full Israeli military control.
However, they did not address key issues such as property rights or compensation for Palestinians who lost their homes, businesses and livelihoods during the war. They also did not specify where displaced Palestinians could live during reconstruction. It remains unclear who will provide troops for the international stabilization force, whose deployment is seen as crucial to moving to the next phase.
Kouchner did not say who would finance the reconstruction, which would first require the removal of an estimated 68 million tons of rubble and war debris, but he said that the removal of rubble had already begun in some places and expressed optimism that the "New Gaza" could be rebuilt relatively quickly.
“In the Middle East, they build cities of this scale - with two, three million people - they build it in three years, so something like this is entirely feasible if we make it happen,” he said. He added that the process would start in Rafah, which was the capital of southern Gaza before the war.
The conference will be held in Washington in the coming weeks, “where we will announce a large portion of the contributions that will be provided… from the private sector,” Kushner said, without going into details.
"There will be incredible investment opportunities from the private sector. I know it's a bit risky to invest in a place like this, but you need to come, believe, invest in people and try to be a part of it," he said.
Kushner acknowledged that it would be difficult to convince anyone to invest in Gaza without security, but stressed that disarming Hamas would be a key focus and outlined a series of "demilitarization principles."
"Without security, no one will invest, no one will come and build there. We need investment to start creating jobs," he said, adding that Trump wants to introduce "the principles of a free-market economy" to Gaza.
The slides Kushner presented were almost identical to slides leaked to the Wall Street Journal in December. The newspaper reported at the time that the US had offered to “backstop” 20 percent of the reconstruction project, without further explanation.
Trump has floated the idea of transforming the long-impoverished and neglected Gaza into the "Riviera of the Middle East," which has drawn criticism from Palestinians.
The next phase of Trump's Gaza plan calls for Hamas to lay down its arms and for international peacekeeping forces to be deployed to the densely populated coastal enclave, while Israeli troops continue to withdraw. The first phase left Israel in control of well over half of Gaza, while Hamas retained a narrow strip of territory along the coast.
Israel has continued to carry out air and artillery strikes in Gaza, often accusing Hamas members of preparing attacks on its troops or of infiltrating Israeli-controlled areas.
Israel has killed more than 480 Palestinians since the ceasefire came into effect, according to health officials, while militants have killed three Israeli soldiers.
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