Rabat_Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi announced on Tuesday, March 4 that Arab leaders have endorsed his country’s plan for the reconstruction of Gaza; which primarily entails allowing Palestinians to remain in the enclave as opposed to US President Donald J Trump’s plan of turning Gaza into “a Middle East Riviera” after expelling its 2.3 million residents.
Egypt’s reconstruction plan is divided into 3 phases would cost $53 billion: an initial recovery phase would take approximately six months, followed by a “reconstruction” then a “governance” phase that would last four to five years, combined.
The first phase involves building 200.000 homes and reconstructing 600.000 buildings; which would cost an estimated $3 billion. The plan also discussed the question of Gaza’s governance and proposed that this should be entrusted initially to a committee of Palestinian technocrats under the Palestinian Authority (PA).
The second phase would cost around $20 billion allocated for clearing the devastating amounts of rubble and constructing a further 400.000 homes in the hope of providing housing for the entire population within 30 months. This phase also aims to restore Gaza’s infrastructure from water, electricity, telecom and waste, as well as building an industrial port, fishing port, commercial port and airport; all of which have been destroyed at some point of Israel’s history of war on Gaza.
The last phase would revolve around planning on who would take control of Gaza, as the strategy designates the Technocratic committee responsible for overseeing humanitarian aid and Gaza’s governance at this stage. This phase; which cost is estimated at $30 billion, would also see the establishment of a Steering and Management Council: a financial fund supporting the interim government.
Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas welcomed Egypt’s proposal and called on the US to support it. Abbas stated that it is paramount to uphold the ceasefire, provide humanitarian aid, ensure the complete withdrawal of Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) and put an end to Israel’s continued attempts to annex palestinian lands.
Abbas, in power since 2005, also demanded that the PA should shoulder the responsibility of governing Gaza and stated that he’s ready to hold presidential and parliamentary elections within a year if the circumstances allows it. The PA president also stressed that his government is the sole authority in the occupied Palestinian territory, in a direct jab at Hamas.
Earlier in January, senior PA official Hussein al-Sheikh presented a pitch to US Special Envoy to the Middle East, Steve Wittcoff, that declared the PA’s readiness to clash with Hamas if necessary to take control over Gaza.
In its turn, Hamas welcomed the reconstruction plan and labelled it as a “step forward” towards Arab and Muslim alignment with the Palestinian Cause. On the other hand, Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Sa’aar, took to the social platform X to criticize the plan saying that it has “failed to address the realities of the situation following October 7th.” Sa’ar, however, backed Trump’s initial proposal of expelling Gaza’s Palestinians and called it “an opportunity for the Gazans to have free choice based on their free will.”
Israel’s sentiment echoes that of the White House, which declared that they stand by Trump’s original plan for the enclave. National Security Council Spokesperson Brian Hughes, said in a statement to Israeli media that the plan “does not address the reality that Gaza is currently uninhabitable and residents cannot humanely live in a territory covered in debris and unexploded ordnance.”
The US has been the primary arms supplier for Israel preceding the events of October 7th 2023. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), an international institute that provides data and analysis on armed conflict, the US supplied 69% of Israel’s imports of major conventional arms between 2019 and 2023. Even during the ceasefire, the Pentagon declared that the US confirmed the sale of $3 billion of weapons to Israel in the last week of February.
