CAIRO, 23 Dec. - (ANA) - The latest US proposal for the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip does not impress the Egyptians. Rather, it has triggered pushback and accusations that this proposal aims to bury another plan by Egypt related to the reconstruction of the war-devastated Palestinian territory.

 

The new proposal, reportedly developed over the past 45 days by a team led by US President Donald Trump's senior advisors, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, aims to transform Gaza into a "high-tech, luxurious" coastal city.

 

Called "Project Sunrise", the plan was reportedly pitched to potential donor countries, including oil-rich Gulf nations, and will cost $112 billion to implement over two decades.

 

The US is expected to anchor the plan by providing $60 billion, while hopes are pinned on Gaza itself to supply the remaining funds as the plan moves ahead.

 

Those to which the plan has been pitched have reportedly included Egypt, which has not officially commented on it so far.

 

Analysts argue that Cairo will likely walk a very fine line between rejecting the new plan and pushing forward its own blueprint for Gaza's reconstruction.

 

"Egypt will only approve reconstruction plans that safeguard the rights of the people of Gaza and don't slice any territories away from this Palestinian territory," Egyptian political researcher Ahmed Abdel Meguid said to The New Arab.

 

Similar to many analysts, Meguid expects Cairo to balance between rejecting the plan and ensuring it does not lose support from President Trump for the ceasefire and the prospect of a final settlement to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

 

 

 

 

Many in Egypt view this latest proposal as merely a revival of another plan unveiled earlier this year, when the US president declared ambitions to rebuild Gaza into a "Middle East Riviera".

 

At the time, the US president's plan received outright rejection from Cairo, which viewed it as an "act of injustice" to the people of Gaza, being founded on the premise of depopulating their territory.

 

Analysts in Cairo argue that the new proposal is practically the same as the Trump "Riviera" plan, especially in presupposing that Gaza belongs to nobody and is up for grabs by real estate investors. Most notably, the proposal overlooks the real needs of Gaza's people, who, after two years of unrelenting Israeli attacks, want their basic needs to be met immediately.

 

"The people of Gaza don't need either skyscrapers or smart cities two years after the war on their territory," remarked Ahmed Youssef, a professor of political science at Cairo University.

 

The priority, he added, has to be given to protecting the people of Gaza against ceasefire violations, including repeated Israeli attacks that are still killing Palestinians.

 

"The people of Gaza live in very dire conditions," Youssef told TNA. "They need rescue through a real ceasefire and the provision of the things that can keep them living, including humanitarian aid."

 

He and like-minded analysts view the proposal as too decorative to match the bitter realities on the ground in Gaza.

 

After two years of Israel's genocide war, which killed more than 70,000 Palestinians, mainly women and children, Gaza is nothing but ruins.

 

President Trump himself described it repeatedly as a "demolition site", probably quoting Witkoff, who visited the territory more than once in the past months.   - (ANA) -

 

AB/ANA/23 December 2025 - - -