Plan to rebuild Gaza being developed

CAIRO (AP):

Egypt is developing a plan to rebuild Gaza without forcing Palestinians out of the strip in a counter to President Donald Trump’s proposal to depopulate the territory so the United States can take it over.

Egypt’s state-run Al-Ahram newspaper said the proposal calls for establishing “secure areas” within Gaza where Palestinians can live initially while Egyptian and international construction firms remove and rehabilitate the strip’s infrastructure.

Egyptian officials have been discussing the plan with European diplomats as well as with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, according to two Egyptian officials and Arab and Western diplomats. They are also discussing ways to fund the reconstruction, including an international conference on Gaza reconstruction, said one of the Egyptian officials and an Arab diplomat.

The proposal comes after an international uproar over Trump’s call for the removal of Gaza’s population of some two million Palestinians. Trump said the United States would take over the Gaza Strip and rebuild it into a “Riviera of the Middle East” though Palestinians would not be allowed back.

Palestinians have widely said that they will not leave their homeland, while Egypt and Jordan – backed by Saudi Arabia – have refused Trump’s calls for them to take in Gaza’s population. Rights groups have widely said that the plan amounts to forced expulsion, a potential war crime. European countries have also largely denounced Trump’s plan. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has praised the idea and says Israel is preparing to implement it.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was in Saudi Arabia on Monday in a tour of the region, has said that the United States was up to hearing alternative proposals. “If the Arab countries have a better plan, then that’s great,” Rubio said.

Egypt’s Al-Ahram newspaper said the proposal is designed to “refute American President Trump’s logic” and counter “any other visions or plans that aim to change the geographic and demographic structure of Gaza Strip.”

Gaza is nearing a critical juncture with the first phase of a ceasefire due to run out in early March. Israel and Hamas must still negotiate a second phase meant to bring a release of all remaining hostages held by the militants, a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a long-term halt to the war.

Any reconstruction plan will be impossible to implement without a deal on the second phase, including an agreement on who will govern Gaza in the long term. Israel demands the elimination of Hamas as a political or military force in the territory, and international donors are unlikely to contribute to any rebuilding if Hamas is in charge.

Central in Egypt’s proposal is the establishment of a Palestinian administration that is not aligned with either Hamas or the Palestinian Authority to run the strip and oversee the reconstruction efforts, according to the two Egyptian officials involved in the efforts.

It also calls for a Palestinian police force mainly made up of former Palestinian Authority policemen who remained in Gaza after Hamas took over the enclave in 2007, with reinforcement from Egyptian- and Western-trained forces.

Hamas has said that it is willing to give up power in Gaza. Hamas spokesman Abdul Latif al-Qanou told The Associated Press on Sunday that the group has accepted either a Palestinian unity government without Hamas’ participation or a committee of technocrats to run the territory. The Palestinian Authority, which governs pockets of the West Bank, has, so far, opposed any plans for Gaza that exclude it.

The Western diplomat said France and Germany have backed the idea of Arab countries developing a counterproposal to Trump’s plan and that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi discussed his government’s efforts with the French president in a phone call earlier this month.