The 38-page displacement framework for a tourist hub atop the rubble of Gaza

Future plans for the Gaza Strip currently circulating among United States government officials set out a pathway for the “voluntary” relocation of the strip’s entire population to make way for the construction of tourist resorts and tech industry hubs under a decade of US administrative control, according to a Washington Post exclusive published Sunday.

The outlet obtained the 38-page prospectus, which renders in full color plans which President Donald Trump and members of his administration have voiced since as early as 2020 and have embellished in increasing detail since.

People familiar with the planning and with deliberations within the administration over postwar scenarios for Gaza told the outlet that the plan is circulating within Trump’s administration but is yet to be approved.

The plan would see the US take the Gaza Strip under a trusteeship for at least 10 years, making provision for the displacement of more than two million people currently living in Gaza, at least temporarily, either through what the document describes as “voluntary departures” to another country or into restricted, secured zones inside the strip during construction.

Under the plan, a trust, called the Gaza Reconstitution, Economic Acceleration and Transformation Trust, or GREAT Trust, would be established.

As part of the displacement framework, the trust would provide Palestinian households with a “digital token” in exchange for the rights to redevelop their properties. The token could be used to finance a new life elsewhere or later be exchanged for an apartment in one of six to eight “AI-powered smart cities” to be built as part of the planned “Riviera of the Middle East.” 

Every Palestinian “choosing to leave” would be entitled to a cash payment of US$5,000, in addition to subsidies covering four years of rent abroad and a year of food. 

The plan estimates that every person leaving Gaza would save the trust $23,000, compared with the cost of temporary housing and “life support” services that would have to be provided in secured zones for Palestinians staying in the strip.

Israel is already intending to forcibly displace around 800,000 people from Gaza City to a closed “humanitarian zone” in the strip’s south, where the entire Rafah governorate is already under Israeli military control.

Plan calculations anticipate a nearly fourfold return on a $100 billion investment after 10 years through ongoing “self-generating” revenue streams.

The proposal was developed by some of the same Israelis who created the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the entity whose operations have facilitated the almost daily massacres perpetrated by the Israeli military against Palestinians seeking aid at the foundation’s distribution points in Gaza. At times, GHF staff have also perpetrated the massacres themselves.

The plan builds on earlier templates to impose commercial development on the Gaza Strip that would stipulate the permanent removal of the 2 million Palestinians for whom the strip is home. 

An Egyptian official told Mada Masr that the prospectus represents, in upgraded form, a re-introduction of the plan envisioned for the strip during Trump’s first term in office by his son-in-law and former property dealer Jared Kushner. 

Kushner, who is also a real estate developer, was the architect of Trump’s Middle East policy during the first term, including brokering the Abrahamic Accords normalization deals with Arab states. He has previously articulated ambitions for the “very valuable potential” of Gaza’s “waterfront property” along the Mediterranean coastline, drawing comparisons to Hong Kong and Rio de Janeiro, among others. 

Kushner also suggested last year that Israel “bulldoze something in the Negev” to move people out of Gaza and “clean it up” to finish the job.

Recently, he attended a White House meeting on Gaza’s post-war future that was also attended by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and which was followed by US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff stating the US is putting together a “very comprehensive” plan on “the next day” after the war. 

Blair’s lobbying company has also worked in recent months with Boston Consulting Group (BCG) — an entity that was also involved in creating the GHF—  to put together plans for the GREAT Trust and to plan the post-war economy envisioned by Trump, as per reports from earlier this year.

Trump began touting the idea in public speeches shortly after assuming office in January, when he vowed the US would take over the war-ravaged Gaza and turn it into a real estate development opportunity after Palestinians are resettled elsewhere. He later posted online an AI-generated video depicting a rebranded Gaza in the model of a Trump beach resort.

The report comes as Israel pushes ahead with its operation to occupy Gaza City, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu voicing an ambition in August to control the camps in central Gaza and its southern coast as well.

The Israeli government is simultaneously debating annexing more of the West Bank in retaliation for the commitment several Western countries have made to recognize Palestine statehood at the upcoming United Nations General Assembly.