Gaza Between the ‘Riviera’ Illusion and the Reality of Division
Al-Khamisa News Network - Gaza
Author: Dr. Abdel Rahim Jamous
Between the American trusteeship project and the Arab option for reconstruction, recent leaks reveal an (American–Israeli) plan to administer Gaza through an international trusteeship lasting ten years, turning the Strip into “an investment resort” and relocating its population forcibly or voluntarily.
In contrast, the Cairo summit proposed an Arab plan of $55 billion to rebuild Gaza under Palestinian oversight.
But the truth remains clear: no national project can succeed amid division; unity is the ultimate condition to save Palestine from liquidation, and this will remain hostage to the position of Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, and those who benefit from the continuation of the split and the paralysis of the Palestinian political system.
What The Washington Post revealed about the U.S. plan called GREAT Trust is no longer mere speculation or fleeting leaks; it has become a political and economic document on which the Trump administration bases its vision for the future of the Gaza Strip.
A 38-page plan treats Gaza as the “Riviera of the Middle East” and a hub for investment and technology, but in reality it represents a project to remove Palestinians from their land under the cover of “reconstruction” and “economic transformation.”
The plan calls for temporary or permanent relocation of more than two million Palestinians, through meager financial incentives ($5,000 per person) and promises of future smart cities.
An international fund would be established under American–Israeli management for at least ten years, imposing trusteeship over Gaza and excluding the Palestinian National Authority from any effective role. More dangerously, the document never mentions the establishment of a Palestinian state, but rather an “entity” attached to the Abraham Accords.
This vision would not have found fertile ground without the Palestinian division that has persisted since Hamas’s takeover in 2007 and its insistence on clinging to its narrow authority. While international projects race to detach Gaza from its Palestinian surroundings and turn it into an investment space emptied of its national substance, the question remains: shouldn’t Hamas and the other factions first complete reconciliation and return the Strip to the embrace of the Palestinian state before a trusteeship and resettlement project is imposed on it?!
In contrast, the Arab response came through the Cairo summit in March 2025, which approved an alternative plan to rebuild Gaza with a budget estimated at $55 billion, under Palestinian supervision through an independent technocratic committee linked to the Palestinian Authority, and in phases beginning with rubble removal, through housing and infrastructure construction, to strategic projects such as a port, an airport, and an industrial zone.
This plan made clear that Palestinians remain on their land and that reconstruction must be within a national framework that enshrines the people’s right to life and freedom, rather than turning the Strip into an “investment zone without an identity.”
However, the success of any plan, whether Arab or international, remains contingent on the Palestinians’ ability to resolve their internal choice; reconciliation is no longer a political option between two disputing parties but has become the ultimate condition to save Gaza and Palestine from inevitable loss.
The continuation of division is the fuel that feeds dubious projects, while national unity alone is capable of overturning all imposed alternatives.
Gaza today stands at a crossroads: between a fictitious “Riviera” drawn by others and a national project that rises from within it. The choice, as always, lies with the Palestinians first and last. Hamas must declare that it renounces its unilateral control over the Gaza Strip, join the Palestine Liberation Organization and become a natural part of the Palestinian political system, thereby thwarting all the dubious projects that now threaten the future of the Palestinian people not only in the Gaza Strip but everywhere. Here, Hamas must prove its Palestinian patriotism; otherwise history will judge it without mercy and it will be in confrontation with its people in the Gaza Strip and beyond.
