Egypt is developing a plan to rebuild the Gaza Strip that would not entail forcing Palestinians out of the territory, as Arab nations scramble to counter U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposal to move out residents and allow the United States to take control.
The plan, according to a report by Egypt’s state-run Al-Ahram newspaper, calls for establishing “secure areas” within territory where Palestinians would initially stay while Egyptian and other international construction firms remove ruins and rebuild infrastructure.
SEE ALSO: Why Is Saudi Arabia Hosting U.S.-Russia Talks? And Why Now?Three safe zones would be designated within Gaza under the plan during an initial six-month period. Mobile houses and shelters would be established and humanitarian aid would flow in.
The rebuilding project – expected to last five years -- would also provide tens of thousands of jobs to Gazans, an Egyptian official told AP.
Two Egyptian officials and Arab and Western diplomats told AP that Cairo has been discussing the plan with officials in Europe, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. Possible funding matters are high up on the agenda.
On February 4, Trump told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a White House news conference that "the U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it, too. We'll own it."
Trump said Palestinians currently living there would be resettled permanently to Arab nations in the region and that the United States would lead an effort to turn Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
More than 2.3 million people live in the Gaza Strip, although most have been displaced following 16 months of attacks by the Israeli military, which has vowed to wipe out the influence of Hamas -- the U.S.- and European Union-designated terrorist organization that ruled the territory.
Palestinians have widely said they would not leave their homeland.
Media reports have stated that Saudi Arabia is leading an urgent effort by Arab nations to develop a plan for Gaza to counter Trump's proposal. Egypt, Jordan, and the U.A.E. are reportedly involved in the effort.
Egypt, Jordan, and other Arab nations have rejected calls to take in Gaza’s population.
SEE ALSO: Why Trump's Gaza Proposal Is Stirring Global ControversyU.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who arrived in Israel on February 15 for a Middle East tour, expressed full support for Israel’s war aims in the Gaza Strip and said that “must be eradicated.”
“As long as [Hamas] stands as a force that can govern or as a force that can administer or as a force that can threaten by use of violence, peace becomes impossible,” Rubio said in a joint news conference with Netanyahu on February 16.
Israel and Hamas have reached a cease-fire deal that mostly ended the fighting that was triggered by the extremist group’s invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023, that killed some 1,200 people.
But the truce remains fragile, even Hamas frees Israeli hostages in exchange for Tel Aviv’s release of imprisoned Palestinians.