Gaza

As US President Donald J. Trump and members of his “Board of Peace” pledged billions of dollars for “relief and reconstruction” in the Gaza Strip, two recent public opinion polls show that most Palestinians are still concerned about widespread corruption in Palestinian society.

This concern should sound alarm bells for the Trump Administration and donor countries if they are about to invest billions of dollars in the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians are loudly warning international donors that Palestinian leaders are not trustworthy in handling money.

The Trump administration laid out an ambitious and highly speculative vision for the future of the Gaza Strip at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday, as Washington tries to advance the thorny cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.

The presentation by Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, featured slides that depicted gleaming skyscrapers rising on Gaza’s coast and the construction of entirely new cities. The plan would require investment of at least $25 billion in the devastated Palestinian enclave, according to the proposal.

As part of US President Donald J. Trump’s plan for ending the Israel-Hamas war, international troops could be deployed in the Gaza Strip as early as next month, US officials told Reuters on December 12. According to the unnamed officials, the proposed International Stabilization Force (ISF) would not fight Hamas, the Palestinian terror group that sparked the war by invading Israel on October 7, 2023 and murdering more than 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals and wounding thousands more.

Washington’s European allies urged Hamas to accept the plan, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he supported as he warned the Palestinian armed group of more devastation if it did not comply.

Eight Arab or Muslim-majority nations said in a joint statement that they “welcome the role of the American president and his sincere efforts aimed at ending the war in Gaza”.

They said they “affirm their readiness to engage positively and constructively with the United States and the parties toward finalising the agreement and ensuring its implementation”.

It is evident that Israel, with the help of the United States, wishes to shunt its Palestinian refugee problem onto other states. American and Israeli officials this week leaked to the Associated Press that they had contacted the governments of Sudan, Somalia and Somaliland to propose using their countries as potential destinations to resettle Palestinians displaced from Israel. Meanwhile, the Trump administration will proceed with its plan to take over the ruined Gaza and turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East”.