U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposal to clear the Gaza Strip of its Palestinian residents and transform it into an international beach resort under U.S. control has revived a plan previously suggested by his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, a year ago.
Trump outlined the controversial idea in a press conference on Tuesday, prompting shocked reactions from Palestinians and Western critics who argue that it would amount to ethnic cleansing and violate international law.
But it was not the first time Trump has spoken of Gaza in terms of real estate investment opportunities. In October last year, he told a radio interviewer Gaza could be “better than Monaco” if rebuilt in the right way.
The idea of a radical redevelopment of Gaza was aired soon after Israel began its campaign in the narrow coastal enclave following the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, most prominently by Kushner, who as special Middle East envoy in Trump’s first term helped drive the “Abraham Accords” normalizing relations between Israel and a number of Arab countries.
“Gaza’s waterfront property, it could be very valuable, if people would focus on building up livelihoods,” Kushner, who once described the entire Arab-Israeli conflict as “nothing more than a real-estate dispute between Israelis and Palestinians” said at an event in Harvard in February 2024.
“It’s a little bit of an unfortunate situation there, but I think from Israel’s perspective, I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up,” he said. Kushner was himself a property developer in New York prior to Trump’s first term.
A spokesperson for Kushner did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story.
‘Impossible To Implement’
There were also doubts about how literally Trump’s proposal should be understood, given his reputation as a freewheeling dealmaker used to unsettling his negotiating partners with attacks from unexpected angles.
Saudi Arabia, the predominant power in the Arab world, “will not take this statement very seriously,” a source close to the royal court in Riyadh said. “It has not been thought through and is impossible to implement, so he will eventually realize that.”
In a statement on Wednesday, Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry said the kingdom rejected any attempt to displace the Palestinians from their land. Both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas also condemned the remarks.
Reuters could not establish whether Kushner, whose private equity firm has taken investments from Gulf countries, including $2 billion from Saudi Arabia, has engaged in any discussions in the region about Gaza investment.
For Palestinians, however improbable the idea of Gaza as a waterfront resort may sound, such talk recalls the “Nakba” or catastrophe after the 1948 war at the start of the state of Israel, when 700,000 fled or were forced from their homes.
Early in the war, internet memes mocking beachside condominiums along Gaza’s coastline were widely shared, often by pro-Israel users. These images mocked Palestinians in Gaza, where 47,000 people have died during Israel’s retaliation for the October 7 attacks. Israeli politicians have criticized Palestinian leaders for focusing on fighting Israel instead of developing Gaza, which has been under a blockade for two decades, limiting access to finance and resources.
$100 Billion In Reconstruction
Gaza was once a popular destination for Israeli tourists, with beachside cafes and restaurants, even after Hamas took control in 2007. However, the practicality of Trump’s vision to turn it into “The Riviera of the Middle East” faces significant challenges, particularly given Hamas’s continued control and strong local opposition to his comments.
Land ownership in Gaza is governed by a complex mix of Ottoman, British mandate, Jordanian laws, and clan customs. This, combined with heavy restrictions on foreign land ownership, makes the realization of such a vision extremely difficult to achieve.
For the moment, after 15 months of bombardment, Gaza is a “demolition site” in Trump’s words, that will require 10-15 years of reconstruction, according to his special Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, himself a former real-estate developer who last week became the most senior U.S. official to step foot in the enclave since the war began.
Estimates of the cost of reconstruction go as high as $100 billion.
Gulf countries, a potential source of investment for rebuilding Gaza, have rejected financing while the path to an independent Palestinian state remains blocked. Analysts say uncertainties outweigh the potential benefits for other investors, with many of Israel’s largest construction firms declining to comment.
“Large-scale redevelopment in post-conflict areas generally requires significant investment, stability, and long-term planning, but beyond that, it’s impossible to assess anything concrete right now,” said Raz Domb, an analyst at Leader Capital Markets in Tel Aviv, an investment bank.
Settlements
One group which has reacted with enthusiasm is Israel’s settler movement, which has long dreamed of returning to settlements in Gaza that were abandoned 20 years ago under former Israeli prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Trump’s own administration contains a number of officials close to the settler movement and although Trump said he did not see Jewish settlements being rebuilt in Gaza, his comments were seized on immediately.
Settler groups say their interest in returning to Gaza is motivated by the Biblical connections they feel with the land but, for the moment at least, such considerations were secondary to the prospect of moving out Palestinians.
Last year the Nachala Movement, which promotes Jewish settlement in the West Bank, helped organize a conference at the edge of the Gaza Strip called “Preparing to Resettle Gaza”, where politicians in Netanyahu’s Likud party and others discussed plans to “encourage emigration” of Palestinians from Gaza and rebuild the settlements.
“Assuming Trump’s comments about transferring Gazans to other countries are translated into practice, we must hurry and establish settlements throughout the Gaza Strip,” the group said on the social media platform X.
“No part of the land of Israel should be left without Jewish settlement.”
(With inputs from Reuters)
