ISRAELI OCCUPIED GAZA, 21 Dec. - (ANA) - The plan would cost more than $112 billion over a decade, with Washington ready to step in to support around half that cost in grants and guarantees on debt.

 

A team led by US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff have drafted a plan to turn Gaza into a futuristic, high-tech megacity, as Israel continues to bomb displaced Palestinians.

 

Dubbed “Project Sunrise”, the 32-page proposal seen by The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) includes images, charts, and cost tables outlining steps needed to be taken to rebuild the destroyed Palestinian territory, where a fragile ceasefire has held since early October in spite of ongoing, deadly Israeli violations.

 

The proposal was drafted in 45 days with input from other US and Israeli officials, and people in the private sector and contractors.

 

The presentation put forward by the two top White House aides, Kushner and Witkoff, is labelled “sensitive but unclassified,” the WSJ reported, and it does not detail which countries or firms would be willing to fund the incredibly ambitious and controversial project.

 

Previous proposals about turning Gaza into a glossy coastal riviera have been strongly condemned by Palestinians, Arab states and other world leaders, as the fate of the territory’s 2.3 million inhabitants remains ambiguous. Project Sunrise also does not specify where these people would move to during the reconstruction process.

 

Far-right Israeli officials have openly called for the forced expulsion of Gazans to replace them with Jewish Israeli settlers.

 

According to the WSJ, the US has presented the proposal to prospective donor countries, including oil-rich Gulf states, Turkey, and Egypt; the latter has strictly warned against any moves to displace Gaza's Palestinian residents and forced them into the Sinai Peninsula.

 

Kushner - architect of the controversial Arab-Israeli normalisation deals dubbed the Abraham Accords - last year called on Israel to bulldoze parts of Gaza and expel the Palestinians to the Negev Desert, while touting Gaza’s lucrative "waterfront property" potential.

 

Some US officials remain sceptical that the plan could even work if the Hamas movement refuses to disarm, one of the main provisions of the US-brokered ceasefire agreement. The proposal makes it clear on the second page that the enclave’s reconstruction depends on efforts “to demilitarise and decommission all weapons and tunnels".

 

The officials also have doubts over whether wealthy nations would be willing to pour billions into the plan.

 

According to the draft proposal, the project would cost more than $112 billion over a decade, with Washington ready to step in to support around half that cost in grants and guarantees on debt for  “all the contemplated workstreams” in that time period, the WSJ says.

 

It says that Gaza, under a future non-Hamas government, could then independently fund projects and repay the debt over the years as the economy, in theory, begins to boom.

 

Project Sunrise would happen over four stages, starting in the south of the enclave with Rafah - poised to be Gaza’s “seat of governance” according to the US plan - and Khan Younis. Reconstruction would gradually move northward to Gaza City, the enclave’s largest city.

 

“New Rafah”, as seen in one slide according to the WSJ, would house half a million residents in more than 100,000 housing units, with schools, medical facilities, and mosques.

 

On Friday, as officials from Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey met Witkoff in Miami, Florida, to discuss developments in Gaza and how to move onto the second stage of the ceasefire deal, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said investments are unlikely if the situation in Gaza remains hostile.

 

“You are not going to convince anyone to invest money in Gaza if they believe another war is going to happen in two, three years,” he said.

 

“We have a lot of confidence that we are going to have the donors for the reconstruction effort and for all the humanitarian support in the long term.”

 

The first phase of Trump’s 'peace plan' in Gaza has seen Hamas return all but one captive body to Israel, and Israeli authorities release thousands of Palestinian detainees. The Palestinian group says it is still looking for the body of the last captive, who was among 49 alive and deceased hostages still held in the enclave before the 10 October ceasefire.

 

The first phase was also supposed to see bombed-out Gaza flooded with humanitarian aid, which has not happened due to continued Israeli obstructions.

 

Moving onto the second phase of the deal has been slow. It should see an Israeli military withdrawal, the establishment of a transitional Gaza government, and the deployment of an international peacekeeping mission, or International Stabilisation Force.

 

Hamas and other militant groups must also disarm under this phase of the ceasefire plan, a provision which mediators expect will be the most challenging.

 

More than 70,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, mostly civilians, and nearly all of Gaza's inhabitants have been displaced at least once. The territory has largely been destroyed with entire neighbourhoods wiped out.   - (ANA) -

 

 

AB/ANA/21 December 2025 - - -