Gaza Is a Crime Scene, Not a Real Estate Opportunity

For those of us who have mourned the loss of countless loved ones killed by the Israeli military over the past 27 months and seen our family homes reduced to rubble, the vision of the “New Gaza” unveiled by President Donald Trump and Jared Kushner in Davos is an outrageous moral affront. Seeing AI-generated renderings of luxury skyscrapers and “coastal tourist areas” atop the ruins of our lives is not a vision of peace. It is a model of erasure.

The plan presented by Kushner – who has deep family ties to Benjamin Netanyahu and a history of funding illegal Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank – imagines a “New Gaza.” This Gaza is depicted as a futuristic dreamscape of gleaming apartment buildings, data centers and luxury towers lining the Mediterranean coast in place of the towns and villages that Israel has systematically destroyed – and in fact continues to destroy despite the so-called ceasefire. During his presentation, Kushner praised the value of Gaza’s “waterfront property” and spoke of planning for “catastrophic success,” effectively turning massacres and genocide into an investment opportunity.

This plan will not achieve peace. It aims to perpetuate and further consolidate the Israeli apartheid system that has oppressed Palestinians for eight decades and is the root cause of all violence between Israelis and Palestinians.

Even in the best-case scenario, this plan will likely make Gaza unaffordable for most Palestinians and divide them into “technocratic” camps under the supervision of an “Executive Council” of foreign CEOs led by Trump. More worryingly, by prioritizing “industrial zones” and “technology-driven governance” while ignoring Palestinian human rights and Israel’s current campaign to make Gaza unlivable – such that Palestinians have no choice but to leave – this vision amounts to soft ethnic cleansing. Indeed, just a day before revealing the plan, reports revealed that the Israeli government had discussed a proposal to reopen the Rafah crossing only on the condition that outgoing traffic be prioritized over entry, setting a ratio ensuring that more Palestinians leave the Gaza Strip than are allowed to return. This plan aims to replace our indigenous peoples and society with a capitalist dystopia where we are just cheap labor behind militarized walls.

Trump and Kushner speak of a “new Gaza” without ever taking into account the destruction of the old one by Israel. Under this administration’s leadership, Gaza is treated like a troubled asset or bankrupt start-up awaiting new management, rather than a homeland and the site of a crime scene, with thousands of bodies still missing beneath the rubble.

I owned a house on the beach in Gaza. Israel razed it last year, as it did tens of thousands of others, damaging or destroying more than 90 percent of all homes in Gaza. No group of Trump-backed CEOs, autocrats and government leaders complicit in Israel’s genocidal campaign can restore what was stolen by force. However, since a conference in Davos, they have claimed the power to decide what happens next for a people they refuse to even look in the eyes.

If the United States and the international community truly want to move toward true and lasting peace, they must abandon these neocolonial plans and turn to a solution rooted in freedom, justice, and Palestinian action.

To begin, the process must be anchored in Palestinian self-determination; Gaza’s governance must be run by Palestinians, for Palestinians, within a unified national framework – not under a “management contract” overseen by foreign administrators. Second, instead of attempting to replace the UN system with “free market principles,” the United States must fully restore funding to UNRWA, guarantee unfettered aid at all crossing points, and force Israel to reverse its current attempts to bar UNRWA and other humanitarian groups from carrying out their crucial work. Third, there must be absolute accountability for reconstruction: it must be treated as a legal right and a remedy for the destruction wrought by Israel with American-made weapons, not as an ATM for well-connected investors. Finally, there must be a firm political horizon for when the international community will recognize a sovereign and viable Palestinian state within the 1967 borders. Without a clear path to ending Israel’s brutal occupation, any “investment” is just a means of financing a more comfortable cage.

But before any of this can happen, Israel must be forced to definitively end its campaign of genocide in Gaza, which, as Amnesty International and others have pointed out, continues despite the so-called ceasefire announced in October. To achieve this, the international community must move beyond rhetoric and fulfill its legal obligations under the Genocide Convention to prevent further atrocities. This requires the immediate imposition of a comprehensive arms embargo and targeted sanctions against Israel – measures that are not mere political choices but legal imperatives for every signatory committed to ending the destruction of a people.

While the Israeli government was consulted in the development of Trump’s plan, the Palestinian people – the very subject of these grand designs – were deliberately excluded. Decisions about our lands, our governance, and our lives are finalized in a perversely named Trump-led “Peace Council.”

True peace and reconstruction acknowledge responsibility for the destruction of our homes and lives, and prioritize Palestinian action. We do not need a “blueprint” imposed on us by people who do not care about our rights or well-being. We need our homeland preserved and rebuilt, and our rights and aspirations centered.