“We have a master plan. … There is no plan B.”
Jared Kushner laid out his vision for postwar Gaza in front of an audience at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
If it fails, he said, it will be easy to assign blame.
“If Hamas does not demilitarize, it will hinder the realization of the aspirations of the people of Gaza,” he said.
The presentation, which felt somewhat rushed, came shortly after US President Donald Trump’s controversial signing of the Peace Commission Charter, which represents the next step in the 20-point ceasefire plan agreed between Israel and Hamas in October.
Kushner, the president’s son-in-law who played a leading role in brokering the deal, struck an optimistic note, despite occasional warnings and at least one notable omission: an international stabilization force that was a key part of Trump’s original Gaza ceasefire plan.
Let’s look at some key points here.
Coastal tourism, airports, ports
A map of Gaza was displayed on the screen, showing how the enclave would be developed.
The “coastal tourism” zone will run along the seafront, long enough to accommodate up to 180 skyscrapers, many of which are likely to be used as hotels.
The port was marked on the southwestern edge of Gaza, along the border with Egypt, and the map showed a section of the airport immediately inland from the port.
(Although not marked on the map, a few miles south is the site of the former Gaza airport, which was destroyed in an earlier Israeli attack more than 20 years ago.)
Kushner highlighted two urban developments called New Rafah and New Gaza.
New Rafah will include more than 100,000 permanent housing units, along with more than 200 schools and 75 medical facilities. He expressed hope that construction would be completed within two to three years. He said work to remove the debris has already begun.
Kushner said the “new Gaza” would be an industrial hub and aim to achieve 100% full employment. Computer-generated images show the metropolis looks a lot like Persian Gulf cities like Doha and Dubai, with its glitzy waterfront accommodation and offices.
Make no mistake, the scale of the challenge is enormous, and the presentation offered little detail on how to achieve it. Two years of Israeli shelling, launched in response to Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, have damaged or destroyed more than 80% of buildings in the Gaza Strip.
Kushner said the government would make the first contribution and the first announcement would be made at a conference in Washington in the coming weeks.
He also appealed to the private sector to come forward and promise “great investment opportunities”.
“We know it’s a little risky to invest in a place like this, but we need you to come and have faith and have people invest,” he said.
Palestinian officials were slow to react to Kushner’s presentation, but criticism from other countries underscored the Palestinians’ sense of powerlessness and exploitation.
“Palestinians are facing a plan to eliminate their very existence based on domestication, subjugation and domination,” Ramy Abdou, founder of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Observatory Palestine, posted on X.
Israeli forces are currently stationed in just over half of the territory, including the city of Rafah. The original 20-point plan, which secured a ceasefire and hostage release in October, included details about the creation of an International Stabilization Force (ISF) to facilitate Israel’s complete withdrawal.
So far, third parties have been reluctant to join the military, and Israel has also opposed the possibility of joining, including Turkey.
While Mr. Kushner did not mention any international forces, his announcement about Israel’s withdrawal was limited to one of his presentation slides: “Demilitarization of all of Gaza will allow for a complete withdrawal of the IDF to the security perimeter.”
…and Hamas demilitarized?
Kushner said the task of overseeing demilitarization would fall to a new technical committee, an on-the-ground component of President Trump’s peace commission structure, made up entirely of Palestinian appointees.
If that doesn’t happen, “we can’t rebuild,” he said.
The presentation said heavy weapons, tunnels, military infrastructure, munitions and production facilities would be destroyed, but did not specify how the process would be carried out.
Hamas has tended to say it will only hand over weapons to Palestinian forces within the Palestinian state. Most recently, Bassem Naim, a senior Hamas official, spoke of “freezing or storing” weapons in the context of the current ceasefire.
What about PA and UNRWA?
The Palestinian Authority (PA) has privately expressed concern that the new technocratic committee poses a threat to its centrality in Palestinian politics.
Kushner’s reference to the commission as “Gaza’s new government” did not allay those concerns, but the slide did mention that the PA would eventually become Gaza’s sole civilian authority “once reforms are completed.”
By contrast, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which provides public services to Palestinian refugees, who make up well over half of Gaza’s population, appears to be out of step with such a position.
“We’re studying best practices from around the world. Who can provide the best education, who can provide the best health care? That’s not classified intellectual property,” Kushner said, hinting that UNRWA’s role in Gaza could end.
This is not the first time President Trump’s son-in-law has unveiled an ambitious vision for Gaza.
In 2019, he hosted a summit in Bahrain titled “From Peace to Prosperity” that envisioned “a bustling commercial and tourism hub for Gaza and the West Bank, where international businesses gather and thrive.”
Due to an almost complete lack of overall political will, these plans never got off the ground.
Ali Shas, chairman of Gaza’s new technocratic committee, said in a video statement that it was important to “translate this moment into action.”
To that end, he announced that the Trans-Rafah road between Gaza and Egypt would open next week, signaling that the enclave was “no longer closed to the future and the world,” he said.
