Donald Trump’s new billion-dollar real estate plan for a New Gaza is a “moral failure” and the first step towards the end of any future state of Palestine, civilians in the war-ravaged strip have warned.
The $30bn blueprint to rebuild the besieged enclave from scratch will be “built on the graveyards of countless unidentified Palestinians,” a UN official also added.
Jared Kushner, Mr Trump’s son-in-law and Middle East adviser, revealed US plans to build New Gaza in a presentation in Davos that featured sparkling cities, AI-generated skyscrapers, glitzy seaside resorts and industrial zones.
In a telling lack of Palestinian participation, Mr Kushner also announced a transitional committee to run Gaza, but the name of the body was written backwards in Arabic and split up into unintelligible individual Arabic letters.
Unperturbed, Mr Kushner implored the international community to “put away your concerns” and get on board, adding that it was part of the president’s efforts to move to phase two of a truce between Israel and Hamas.
“We need you to come, take faith, invest in the people, try to be a part of it,” he said, adding that they have already started removing the rubble and doing some of the demolition in the Israel-controlled city of Rafah.
Under Israel’s ferocious bombardment, nearly a million Palestinians were forced to flee the city, which is located along the Egyptian border, with many still displaced and living in a tent city north of it.
There, in the so-called humanitarian zone, displaced families told The Independent that Palestinians had no say in whether they approve or reject the plan or the unilateral move to destroy their homes, and feared the real purpose was to take control.
Hekmat al-Masri, 46, a social development specialist and a mother of one, said the fact that Americans and Israelis were already carrying out demolitions in Rafah without the consent of homeowners was “transforming forced displacement into a development opportunity”.
Rajai al-Shatli, a Palestinian media producer who is also displaced, said it was “the first step towards ending the entire Palestinian national project”.
“Kushner, in the first year of the war, declared that Gaza’s beaches are among the most beautiful in the world and should be developed.
“This is where the plan begins: to take control of the Gaza Strip as if it were the private property of investors worldwide.”
Israel launched an unprecedented bombardment and siege on Gaza in the aftermath of Hamas’s 7 October attacks on southern Israel, during which more than 1,100 people were killed and 250 taken hostage.
In the two years since, Palestinian health officials say Israel’s bombing has killed more than 70,000 people, including thousands of children.
