US officials present a plan to rebuild Gaza as a luxury coastal resort within three years, promising billions in investment and full employment.
DAVOS: US officials have presented a vision to transform Gaza into a luxury coastal resort named “New Gaza” within three years.
President Donald Trump described the plan while introducing his “Board of Peace” conflict-resolution body at the World Economic Forum.
“I’m a real estate person at heart… and I said, look at this location on the sea. Look at this beautiful piece of property. What it could be for so many people,” he said.
His envoy Jared Kushner showcased a master plan aiming for “catastrophic success” with slides of terraced apartment towers overlooking a promenade.
“In the Middle East they build cities like this, you know for two or three million people, they build this in three years,” Kushner stated.
He touted a minimum investment of $25 billion to rebuild infrastructure and public services destroyed in the war.
Kushner projected the territory’s GDP would reach $10 billion within a decade with average household incomes of $13,000 annually.
“This could be a hope. It could be a destination, have a lot of industry and really be a place that the people there can thrive,” he said.
Kushner said the plan enlisted help from Israeli real estate developer Yakir Gabay, who he said was volunteering “not for profit”.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who spearheaded a separate Arab-backed reconstruction plan in 2025, was notably absent from the presentation.
Gaza’s administrator Ali Shaath has said the Egyptian plan forms the “foundation” of the current reconstruction project.
A top UN official recently warned Gazans still live in “inhumane” conditions despite a US-brokered ceasefire that began last October.
Kushner argued that 85% of Gaza’s past economic output relied on aid, which he called unsustainable and undignified.
He insisted the full disarming of Hamas would convince firms and donors to commit to the territory.
“We’ll announce a lot of the contributions that will be made in a couple of weeks in Washington,” Kushner added.
The war began after Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel which killed 1,221 people and took 251 hostages.
Israel’s retaliatory assault has killed at least 71,562 people in Gaza, according to health ministry figures deemed reliable by the UN.
