Jared Kushner unveiled a sweeping blueprint in Davos for rebuilding Gaza after two years of war, presenting a futuristic vision of loft-style apartments, park-lined neighborhoods, offshore energy infrastructure and advanced industrial zones. He described a postwar Gaza that could offer employment and economic opportunity, while saying demolition and rubble removal have already begun.
The proposal is tied to former President Donald Trump’s ceasefire framework and conditions Israeli withdrawal and reconstruction on the phased decommissioning of Hamas’s weapons. Reconstruction, in the plan, would start only in areas where Hamas is fully disarmed or where Israeli forces control territory after removing Palestinians from those areas.
Context and scale
Gaza is roughly 25 miles long and 4 to 7 miles wide. Before the war it housed about 2.2 million people concentrated in cities and refugee camps; most residents now live in makeshift shelters or damaged buildings at risk of collapse. The World Bank estimated in 2024 that damage to critical infrastructure alone topped $18 billion. A U.N.-Habitat report noted Gaza was already highly urbanized before the war—roughly 87 percent urban area—with nearly 600,000 housing units serving the prewar population.
What the plan proposes
– Less housing area than before: Kushner’s maps divide Gaza into four residential districts separated by large green belts, industrial zones and agricultural areas. The industrial and green zones occupy as much or more space than the housing zones, and the plan projects more than half a million jobs in those industrial areas. The overall layout leaves substantially less land for housing than existed prewar, implying either a much smaller resident population or much denser housing allocation.
– Reshaped and partially erased cities: Reconstruction would be phased from the south northward. The plan reimagines Gaza’s urban geography, replacing northern cities and refugee camps such as Beit Lahia and Jabalia with agriculture, data centers and advanced manufacturing. Residential zones are shown in quadrants—Rafah, Khan Younis, Center Camps and Gaza City—linked by only a few main roads and separated by parks and industry. Many Gazans and critics say the plan appears to erase prewar neighborhoods rather than restore them.
– A new transport and logistics hub but no independent crossings: Visuals include an airport, a train, a port and a major logistics hub in southern Gaza. The plan calls for relocating the Rafah crossing to the southern tip and converting it into a trilateral crossing involving Egypt and Israel; Egypt has not accepted Israeli control of Rafah and has not publicly endorsed this proposal. Currently Gaza’s access is limited to land crossings controlled by Israel, with Rafah to Egypt subject to restrictions.
– ‘‘New Rafah’’ as the center: Rafah, already under Israeli military control and largely depopulated during the conflict, is portrayed as the logistics and administrative core. The plan allocates more than 100,000 permanent housing units and roughly 200 educational centers there, suggesting a southward population shift away from the heavily concentrated northern population before the war.
– Coastal redevelopment aimed at tourism and investment: The entire Mediterranean coastline is marked for coastal tourism, with renderings showing high-rise mixed-use towers. Observers warn this could push local residents out of formerly public beachfronts and make prime coastal land unaffordable for many Palestinians.
Outstanding questions and criticism
The plan does not explain who would receive land deeds, how new housing would be allocated, or the process for relocating families whose intact or partially intact homes are slated for demolition—particularly in central and western Gaza City. It is unclear whether Gazans were meaningfully consulted in designing the proposal. Critics, including Gazans interviewed by NPR, say the vision recasts Gaza as an investment opportunity built atop ruins and risks erasing local communities. A U.N. commission later concluded that some Israeli actions during the conflict met the threshold of genocidal acts, a finding Israel disputes.
The proposal credits Israeli private sector figures as key contributors and places Kushner and others on a White House-appointed Gaza Executive Board that would oversee reconstruction and report to a Board of Peace. Officials say the visuals and figures are a starting point, but many practical, legal and humanitarian details remain unresolved as Gaza faces urgent shelter, infrastructure and governance challenges.