Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, the openly white supremacist, said Wednesday that he is engaged in “negotiations” with the United States to discuss how the two countries will divide the Gaza Strip after the war with Hamas. “We have invested a lot of money in this war,” Smotrich argued during a conference in Tel Aviv, according to Israeli media reports. “We need to figure out how to divide the land in percentages. Demolition is the first step in renovating the city, something we’ve already done. Now we just need to build,” he added.

The Israeli minister's remarks come after US President Donald Trump has spoken on several occasions about the possibility of turning the Palestinian enclave into a Mediterranean resort town. Since then, various Israeli leaders have spoken in favor of the idea.

In early September, the American newspaper The Washington Post published a text allegedly circulating in the White House offices that reflects one of the possibilities Washington is considering. According to the document, the Trump administration plans to turn Gaza into a US-occupied zone over the next decade, where a significant portion of the two million Gazans living in the enclave are expected to be displaced.

Specifically, the project seeks to establish a sort of financial, tourism, and technology paradise in the Strip, and to develop cities powered by artificial intelligence. The idea, according to the American newspaper, was developed by the same Israeli sectors that promoted the controversial privatized food distribution system, the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Fund, where hundreds of Gazans have been shot dead while trying to get aid. The plan aims to convince Gazans to leave their homeland in exchange for $5,000 in cash (about €4,200) and subsidies to pay rent for four years in the host country.

Since Trump first floated his idea to turn the Palestinian coastline into a Middle Eastern riviera in February, there has been a constant buzz surrounding the issue of Gazan resettlement. In July, Axios reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had ordered Israel's foreign intelligence agency, the Mossad, to seek out countries willing to host"large numbers" of Palestinians from Gaza.

“Voluntary migration”

According to published reports, the agency's director, David Barnea, traveled to Washington in mid-July with the intention of seeking help from the White House in convincing third countries to accept hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. In 2020, the US government brokered rapprochement between various Arab countries and Israel, which formalized the normalization of relations through the Abraham Accords, which were sealed alongside lucrative trade and military pacts.

It is unknown whether the White House heeded Israel's request mid-year. One of Trump's advisors, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, argued at a conference at Harvard University in 2024 that"the situation in Gaza is very unfortunate," but that Israel "should do everything possible" to expel Gazans to the Negev Desert in southern Israel while "cleaning up" the enclave."Gaza's coastal properties could be very valuable," he asserted.

Kushner, who like Trump has dedicated much of his career to real estate development, attended a meeting held at the White House in late August with the official purpose of addressing"the day after" in the Gaza Strip. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair also attended the meeting.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was in Israel for a few days until Tuesday. According to a major Israeli television network last week, Rubio's visit to Israel would give new impetus to the project to resettle thousands of Gazans abroad, something the Israeli government presents as"voluntary migration." According to these news reports, which did not provide further details, the plan to transfer the Gazan population to third countries could begin to be implemented in October.

It has not been reported that any country in the world has accepted the proposal to accept Gazans, whether voluntary migrants or deportees. In recent months, various reports have mentioned Ethiopia, Indonesia, Libya, Uganda, and Somaliland as possible destinations.