Arab leaders consider Egypt’s plans to rebuild Gaza Strip by removing unexploded ordnance, clearing rubble and creating green housing
More details are emerging of Egypt’s plan for rebuilding the Gaza Strip. The plan, published today, sets out proposals to rebuild the area by 2030 without removing its population.
The $53bn plan is counters Donald Trump’s widely condemned call to remove Gaza’s around two million Palestinians permanently so the US can develop the territory as a tourist site for others.
According to an Associated Press report, the first phase of the Egyptian plan, which is expected to be endorsed by Middle Eastern leaders later on Tuesday, calls for starting the removal of unexploded ordnance and clearing the more than 50 million tons of rubble left by Israel’s bombardment and military offensives.
Hundreds of thousands of temporary housing units would be set up where Gaza’s population could live while reconstruction takes place. The rubble would be recycled, and some of it would be used as infill to create expanded lands on Gaza’s Mediterranean coast.
In the following years, the plan envisages completely reshaping the strip, building “sustainable, green and walkable” housing and urban areas, with renewable energy. It renovates agricultural lands and creates industrial zones and large park areas.
It also calls for opening an airport, a fishing port and a commercial port. The Oslo peace accords in the 1990s called for the opening of an airport and commercial port in Gaza, but the projects withered as the peace process collapsed.
Key events
Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said on Tuesday he was certain that US president Donald Trump would be able to achieve peace on what he referred to as the Palestinian issue.
Speaking during an extraordinary Arab League summit, he said Egypt would be hosting a conference for Gaza reconstruction next month.
Arab leaders consider Egypt’s plans to rebuild Gaza Strip by removing unexploded ordnance, clearing rubble and creating green housing
More details are emerging of Egypt’s plan for rebuilding the Gaza Strip. The plan, published today, sets out proposals to rebuild the area by 2030 without removing its population.
The $53bn plan is counters Donald Trump’s widely condemned call to remove Gaza’s around two million Palestinians permanently so the US can develop the territory as a tourist site for others.
According to an Associated Press report, the first phase of the Egyptian plan, which is expected to be endorsed by Middle Eastern leaders later on Tuesday, calls for starting the removal of unexploded ordnance and clearing the more than 50 million tons of rubble left by Israel’s bombardment and military offensives.
Hundreds of thousands of temporary housing units would be set up where Gaza’s population could live while reconstruction takes place. The rubble would be recycled, and some of it would be used as infill to create expanded lands on Gaza’s Mediterranean coast.
In the following years, the plan envisages completely reshaping the strip, building “sustainable, green and walkable” housing and urban areas, with renewable energy. It renovates agricultural lands and creates industrial zones and large park areas.
It also calls for opening an airport, a fishing port and a commercial port. The Oslo peace accords in the 1990s called for the opening of an airport and commercial port in Gaza, but the projects withered as the peace process collapsed.
Thaslima Begum
Last June, Mazyouna, now 13, was at home when her apartment in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza was hit by an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) rocket. The blast threw Mazyouna and her mother out on to the street. Her little sister Tala was buried under the rubble but found alive.
The bodies of her siblings, Hala, 13, and Mohannad, 10, were pulled out of the wreckage in the hours after the attack.
Mazyouna survived, but half of her face had been ripped off in the explosion; part of her cheek was missing, leaving her jawbone exposed. Medics at the hospital did what they could, but Gaza’s crippled healthcare system was unable to provide her with the specialist care she required.
For five months, as Mazyouna’s wounds became infected and she suffered constant pain from the shrapnel still lodged in her face, her parents repeatedly tried to get permission from Cogat, the Israeli government body for humanitarian affairs, for her to be medically evacuated to the US, where a team of surgeons was waiting to treat her.
Finally, in November, after the Guardian reported on Mazyouna’s case, she, her mother and sister were allowed to leave Gaza and travelled with three other critically injured children to the other side of the world, arriving in Texas.
Now the Guardian have followed her progress, you can read the piece from my colleague Thaslima Begum, here
Reuters has more on Israel’s claims that it killed a Hamas militant leader in a raid in the West Bank overnight into Tuesday.
The Palestinian Authority said Aisar Saadia, 21, was killed by Israeli fire in the volatile city of Jenin, where Israel has been waging a major military operation for weeks. It did not say whether he was a fighter or a civilian.
The Israeli military identified Saadia as a local leader of Hamas and said he was hiding out with an assault rifle, a handgun and other military equipment. The military said it killed another militant who posed a threat and arrested three others.
There was no immediate comment from Hamas.
The Israeli military has said it had expanded its offensive in the occupied West Bank, Agence France-Presse reports, to new parts of the northern city of Jenin. The operation is currently in its 43rd day.
Israeli forces “expanded the counterterrorism operation in northern Samaria to additional areas in Jenin”, the military said, using the Biblical name for that part of the West Bank, adding it killed two Palestinians including a local Hamas leader during the overnight raid.
Arab leaders meeting in Cairo on Tuesday are set to call for a “permanent and just solution” for the Palestinian cause as they endorse a counterproposal to U.S. President Donald Trump’s call for the Gaza Strip to be depopulated and transformed into a beach destination.
The summit hosted by Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi is expected to include the leaders of regional heavyweights Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, whose support is crucial for any postwar plan.
Egypt has developed a postwar plan in which Palestinians would be relocated to safe areas inside Gaza equipped with mobile homes while its cities are rebuilt. Hamas would cede power to an interim administration of political independents until a reformed Palestinian Authority can assume control.
A draft statement endorsing the plan, seen by AP, called for a “permanent and just solution” for the Palestinian cause and for the United Nations Security Council to deploy international peacekeepers in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Israel says aid has become ‘number one source of revenue’ for Hamas
Israel’s top diplomat charged Tuesday that humanitarian aid had become the “number one source of revenue” for Hamas, as he defended his government’s decision to block all deliveries to Gaza.
The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, said the Israeli move “threatens the lives of civilians exhausted by 16 months of brutal war”.
Israel announced on Sunday that it would halt the entry of aid into Gaza after negotiations over next steps in a fragile January 19 ceasefire in the Palestinian territory hit an impasse.
“Humanitarian aid became the number one source of income of Hamas in Gaza,” Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said. “With that money they use for terror to restore their abilities and to get more young terrorists into their organisation.”
The UNRWA chief called on Israel to allow the aid surge agreed under the ceasefire to continue.
Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Tuesday Israel was ready to proceed to the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal, as long as Hamas was ready to release more of the 59 hostages it is still holding.
“We are ready to continue to phase two,” Saar told reporters in Jerusalem as Arab leaders prepared to meet in Cairo to discuss a plan for ending the war permanently.
“But in order to extend the time or the framework, we need an agreement to release more hostages.”
Saar denied that Israel had breached the ceasefire agreement by not moving ahead to stage two negotiations. He said there was “no automaticity” between the stages and he said Hamas had itself violated the agreement to allow aid into Gaza by seizing most of the supplies itself.
“It is a means to continue the war against Israel. It’s today the major part of Hamas income in Gaza,” he said.
Israeli drone strike killed one, Lebanese media state
Lebanese official media said an Israeli strike on a vehicle in the south on Tuesday killed one person, the latest deadly raid amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.
“An enemy drone launched a strike” targeting a vehicle in Tyre district, killing one person, the National News Agency said.
It published an image of a burning, mangled car.
A November 27 truce agreement largely halted more than a year of hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, including two months of full-blown war during which Israel sent in ground troops.
Details of Egypt’s £42bn reconstruction plan for Gaza revealed
Egypt’s reconstruction plan for Gaza will cost $53bn (£42bn), according to a copy of the document seen by Reuters on Tuesday.
The 112-page plan includes maps showing how Gaza’s land would be re-developed and dozens of colourful AI-generated images of housing developments, gardens and community centres.
The plan includes a commercial harbour, a technology hub and beach hotels.
Lebanese official media said Israel carried out a drone strike in the south on Tuesday, the latest such raid amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.
“An enemy drone launched a strike” in Tyre district, the National News Agency said, publishing an image of a burning, mangled car.
