The agreement on Tuesday by Arab leaders to adopt a reconstruction plan for Gaza occurred one month after Donald Trump proposed transforming the enclave into the “Riviera of the Middle East”.
Often criticised for chronic disunity, the Arab League, which met in Cairo, had no choice but to stand against the US president’s demand that 2.3 million Gazans would be resettled in Egypt and Jordan. Cairo and Amman would have faced economic pain and popular protests if they had agreed to such a proposal.
This was the first time an Arab summit has been called upon to approve such an ambitious programme.
Gaza’s recovery has been linked to direct negotiations between Palestine and Israel on the emergence of a Palestinian state alongside Israel in line with the two-state solution. The plan called upon the United Nations Security Council to deploy international peacekeeping forces to Gaza and the West Bank to enhance security “for the Palestinian and Israeli peoples”.
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Syria’s new president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, who leads al-Qaeda offshoot Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which has been branded as a terrorist group, attended the summit.
For the first time since Egypt’s 1979 peace treaty with Israel, Cairo has been called upon to draft the Arab plan and lead the effort to implement it. Egypt had been censured, ostracised and suspended from the Arab League for a decade for concluding what was the first Arab peace treaty with Israel. After Israel had occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, Arab leaders held a summit in Khartoum and said: “No peace with Israel, no negotiations with Israel, no recognition of Israel.”
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Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said his country had worked with Palestinians on creating an administrative committee of independent, professional Palestinian technocrats entrusted with the governance of Gaza after the end of the Israel-Gaza war.
The committee would be responsible for the oversight of humanitarian aid and managing Gaza’s affairs for a temporary period, in preparation for the return of the Palestinian Authority (PA), he said.
The 91-page $53 billion (€50 billion) Egyptian plan itself was drawn up in fewer than 30 days. Its framework was presented last month to a mini-summit in Saudi Arabia of the Gulf countries, Egypt and Jordan, and was approved on Monday by Arab foreign ministers before the summit.
The plan unfolds in three stages.
During the first six-month stage, projected to cost $3 billion, the committee of neutral Palestinian technocrats – operating under the West Bank Palestinian Authority oversight – would oversee the clearance the rubble from the main north-south highway in Gaza. Palestinians would be moved to seven sites where 200,000 temporary housing units would be built to shelter 1.2 million people, while 60,000 damaged buildings would be repaired.
Egypt and Jordan would train a Palestinian police force to enable the reformed Palestinian Authority to take over Gaza’s governance from Hamas, which has backed the plan although the fate of its arms remains unsettled. On Tuesday senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri rejected Israeli and US calls for the group to disarm, saying its right to resist was not negotiable.
The second two-year reconstruction phase, estimated to cost $20 billion, would focus on permanent housing and the rehabilitation of agricultural land as well as the restoration of electricity, water, sewerage and telecommunications.
The third 30-month phase – expected to cost $30 billion- would continue with housing and build an industrial zone, a fishing port, a commercial seaport and an international airport.
Gaza is uninhabitable, and residents cannot humanely live in a territory covered in debris and unexploded ordnance
— Brian Hughes, US National Security Council spokesman
Funding would be raised from donors in the Gulf, Europe, the US and international financial institutions. Disbursement and investment would be internationally supervised.
The US and Israel have rejected the Arab plan. US National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes said in a statement: “The current proposal does not address the reality that Gaza is currently uninhabitable, and residents cannot humanely live in a territory covered in debris and unexploded ordnance. President Trump stands by his vision to rebuild Gaza free from Hamas. We look forward to further talks to bring peace and prosperity to the region.”
The Israeli foreign ministry said the Egyptian plan “fails to address the realities of the situation” such as the raid on October 7th, 2023, by Hamas which killed about 1,200 in Israel.
The ministry reiterated Israel’s support for Trump’s plan as “an opportunity for the Gazans to have free choice based on their free will”.
Additional reporting: Reuters
