Trump to offer Gazans $5,000 each to leave for 10 years

 The Trump administration would pay Palestinians $5,000 to leave Gaza as part of a proposal for the US to take over the territory for 10 years.

The plans form part of a 38-page prospectus circulating the White House that would see the war-torn region turned into a trusteeship under US control while it is transformed into a glitzy tourist destination and tech hub.

The Gaza Reconstitution, Economic Acceleration and Transformation Trust, or Great Trust would see all of Gaza’s two million population relocated through “voluntary” departures to another country or restricted, secured zones within the enclave in exchange for a digital token to give up their land.

The proposals, seen by The Washington Post, are likely to provoke concern among US allies, and clash with plans put forward by surrounding Arab states for the rebuilding of Gaza to be overseen by Palestinians without the removal of the Strip’s population.

Land tokens would give the US-administered trust the right to develop Palestinians’ property, which would be used to finance life in another country or eventually to redeem an apartment in one of up to eight new “AI-powered, smart cities” to be built in Gaza.

Each Palestinian who chooses to leave would also be given $5,000 in cash, subsidies to cover four years of rent and a year’s worth of food.

The Great Trust plan has been drawn up by the Israelis who set up the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the controversial body now distributing food inside the territory at aid sites where hundreds of Palestinians have been killed.

Last week, Donald Trump welcomed Sir Tony Blair to the White House to discuss proposals for rebuilding Gaza.

Sir Tony has worked as an adviser to Steve Witkoff, Mr Trump’s Middle East envoy, while the Tony Blair Institute has carried out polling showing that the “preferred choice” of Gazans is for the territory to become like the United Arab Emirates.

No readout of the meeting was given, but Mr Witkoff said the night before that the administration had a “very comprehensive plan”.

It is not clear if the Great Trust was what Mr Trump had in mind, but large parts of it were allegedly designed to bring to life the president’s vision of transforming Gaza into a “Riviera of the Middle East”, sources told The Washington Post.

A blueprint of the Great Trust proposal obtained by the newspaper shows skyscrapers built from metal and glass sprouting from green fields, with a highway bisecting the centre of the territory.

Drawing inspiration from Georges-Eugène Haussmann’s redesign of 19th century Paris, the document proposes splitting Gaza into six to eight “dynamic, modern and AI-powered smart planned cities”, featuring apartment buildings of up to 20 storeys, surrounded by parks, golf courses and “world-class resorts” on the coast.

The plan would allegedly require no US government funding and would instead be financed by joint public and private sector investments in so-called “mega-projects”.

These include the “MBS Highway”, a ring road and tram line around Gaza’s perimeter flatteringly named after Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, another highway named Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, UAE president, as well as electric vehicle plants and data centres.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE have both publicly committed to a $53bn (£39bn) “Egypt plan”, which suggests Gaza could be rebuilt in a space of just five years, incorporating glistening towers, parks, ports, business zones and an international airport.

The plan, which does not involve removing the Gazan population, voluntarily or otherwise, appeared designed to blend Mr Trump’s vision for a new Dubai with a process for producing a sustainable peace in the region.

During the first year of the Great Trust, Israel would supposedly maintain “overarching rights to meet its security needs”, with internal security policed by third-country nationals and “Western” private military contractors.

Over the course of a decade, trained “local police” would gradually take over and the trust would eventually relinquish its control of the territory when a “reformed and de-radicalised Palestinian Polity is ready to step in its shoes”.

The reconstruction plan is said to have been drawn up in April by a team at Boston Consulting Group (BCG), a firm run by Michael Eisenberg, an Israeli-American, and Liran Tancman, a former Israeli military intelligence officer.

“It’s not prescriptive, but is exploring what is possible,” a source told The Washington Post. “The people of Gaza need to be enabled to build something new, like the president said, and have a better life.”

A BCG spokesman said two former partners had carried out the work without authorisation and had since been fired.

“We are shocked and outraged by the actions of these two partners,” a statement from the company read. “BCG disavows the work they undertook. It has been stopped, and BCG has not and will not be paid for any of their work.”

The White House was approached for comment.

Meanwhile, Israel Katz, the Israeli defence minister, has said that Abu Obeida, the Hamas spokesman, was killed in an Israeli strike on Saturday.

Eyal Zamir, the Israel Defense Forces’ chief of staff, said that the killing of Obeida “is not the end”.

He added: “Most of Hamas’s leadership is abroad, and we will reach them as well.”

His death was one among 88 reported in Israeli attacks in the past 24 hours and came ahead of a security cabinet meeting in Tel Aviv on Sunday evening.

The cabinet discussed annexing the West Bank, according to Axios, in response to Western countries, including the UK, pledging to recognise the state of Palestine.