EGYPT is drawing up plans to rebuild Gaza - without forcing Palestinians out of their homes.
This runs counter to US president Donald Trump’s proposal to depopulate the territory so the US can take it over.
Egypt’s state-run Al-Ahram newspaper said the proposal calls for establishing “secure areas” within Gaza where Palestinians can live initially while Egyptian and international construction firms remove and rehabilitate the strip’s infrastructure.
Egyptian officials have been discussing the plan with European diplomats as well as with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, according to two Egyptian officials and Arab and Western diplomats.
Funding the reconstruction is also being discussed, including an international conference on Gaza reconstruction, said one of the Egyptian officials and an Arab diplomat.
Officials and diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity because the proposal is still being worked out.
The proposals come following international condemnation over Trump’s call for the removal of Gaza’s population of some two million Palestinians.
Trump said the United States would take over the Gaza Strip and rebuild it into a “Riviera of the Middle East”, though Palestinians would not be allowed back.
Palestinians have widely said they will not leave their homeland, while Egypt, Jordan – backed by Saudi Arabia – have refused Trump’s calls for them to take in Gaza’s population.
Human rights groups have widely said the plan amounts to forced expulsion, a potential war crime. European countries have also largely denounced Trump’s plan.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the idea and said Israel is preparing to implement it.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio, who was in Saudi Arabia on Monday in a tour of the region, has said the United States was open to hearing alternative proposals.
“If the Arab countries have a better plan, then that’s great,” Rubio said on Thursday on the US radio programme Clay and Buck Show.
