Gaza rebuild is a business, not resettlement of 2.2 million Palestinians

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu strongly supports President Trump’s plan to resettle Palestinians, redevelop Gaza entirely as a penance for his invasion of the narrow strip where 2.2 million have settled till date when Israel was created in 1964—it was one of the biggest exoduses in history. More than 47,000 have died in the war that was triggered as a retribution to the insane slaughter of 1200 Israeli soldiers on their soil by the militant outfit Hamas. The Israel Defense Forces( IDF) attack on Gaza is seen as disproportionate retribution to the Hamas attack leading to the destruction of homes and deaths of innocent civilians in the narrow enslave.
Trump will not put his monies in Gaza but get construction companies worldwide to do the rebuild and in doing so he will cleanup “Gaza of Hamas tunnels, their military hideouts, and remove them with all their armaments and military wherewithal. A gift to Israel. And Eastern Riviera, one of the most scenic spots of the middle east in Gaza, becomes a tourist destination.

War is business – the armaments industry supplies arms to countries or rebels to foment conflict, and out of the conflict comes death and devastation of homes. And there is an opportunity to rebuild it. America rebuilt Japan out of guilt and made it a super manufacturer of the world. But this time around its more like business opportunity.
There is a popular adage that a good businessman turns every crisis and adversity into a business opportunity. Most parts of the world see the businessman in Trump talking. At the joint press conference with Israel’s Premier Benjamin Netanyahu, President Trump announced to a shocked world that he would resettle the Palestinians living in Gaza since 1948 in other countries and develop the strip into the most beautiful place (tourist spot or a watering hole like Beirut in Lebanon or Dubai or Doha).
Trump’s statement brings out the real estate aspect of his personality. In fact, many historians and diplomats have said that there is a strong link between the armaments industry and construction companies. War is business. More than political ideologies clashing, its business that drives wars.

As Nicolas Cage, Hollywood actor reprising the role of a big time Ukrainian arms dealer, says in one of his movies, war is business. He is an arms dealer who sells discarded weapons and ammunition to countries particularly in Africa where rebellions have been fuelled against either democratic governments or despotic regimes by rebel groups which buy arms from him. “I did not cause those killings in these countries, that’s their problem, I am only in the business of selling arms, is that wrong”, he says. True from his perspective. But he is indirectly responsible for the mass slaughter of local.
Citizens by the government forces.
This reflects the ruthlessness of the armament’s industry to destabilise governments particularly democratically elected governments, one can justify dismantling of despotic regimes though, but to keep themselves in business and rake in huge cash piles – this is another form of Blood Money, such as the rebel groups indulging in illegal mining using people as slaves to work open cast diamond mines. And exporting them.
Now Ukraine, Gaza provide wonderful opportunities for real estate developers, construction companies to rebuild a new edifice from an utterly devastated property by an unnecessary war. When US construction companies went into Japan and rebuilt it, it was more out of a guilty conscience for dropping the dirty bombs over the country. Much of rebuilding that took place in countries devastated by World War 11 during Hitler’s obsession of a raw deal emerging from the Versailles treaty, as Germany lost much of its territories in World War 1 and recapturing them provided opportunities for rebuild to construction companies.
History is repeating itself in Ukraine, where Russian President Vladimir Putin applies the same Hitlerian principle of recapturing much of the states lost during the perestroika and glasnost of Mikhail Gorbachev to take back Crimea and Ukraine and then much of eastern Europe, which most EU countries fear will happen, if Ukraine were to fall. Poland is in great fear which was the first target of Hitler and now Putin, the reincarnation.
Trump is making valiant efforts to end the war in Ukraine by bringing president Volodymyr Zelensky and President Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table, maybe with odds stacked against the former. And this is Trump speaking, despite having Russian President Vladimir Putin as his best friend in the eastern European and east Asian world. If Gaza is going to be redeveloped, then you can expect that once the war ends in Ukraine, he will facilitate redevelopment of Ukraine by leading construction companies.
We see the same cycle operating here. President Trump may be having good intentions in rebuilding Gaza but moving Palestinians out of a place where they sought refuge for a piece of land, they could call theirs defies logic. Trump doubled down on his smash-and-grab foreign policy, announcing that the United States “will take over the Gaza Strip.” He didn’t stop there. “We’ll own…. We will defuse the bombs that remain unexploded. Maybe his takeover would result in a good thing, shutting down tunnels from where militant outfits such as Hamas operated and kept hostages holed in for more than a year reportedly in inhuman conditions.
Trump has been staffing the Pentagon with opponents of intervention in the Middle East such as Dan Caldwell. The notion that America, which was supposed to be distancing itself from the ructions in the Middle East to focus on the China threat, should send in the Marines and take over. The Australian opposition leader has praised Trump’s stance over Gaza comments – as it happened.
A proposal by Donald Trump that the US could “take over” the Gaza Strip and that the Palestinians could live in “peace and harmony” elsewhere has sparked widespread international condemnation. Trump insisted that “everybody loves” his proposal.
Trump’s top diplomat, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and spokesperson, White House press secretary Ms Karoline Leavitt, appeared to backtrack from his proposal that he wants a permanent relocation of Palestinians from Gaza. “The president has made it clear that they need to be temporarily relocated out of Gaza,” Leavitt said during a White House briefing. Rubio said the idea “was not meant as hostile”, describing it as a “generous move – the offer to rebuild.
Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, reportedly said the US president does not want to put any American troops into Gaza. “Witkoff said that the president doesn’t want to put any troops into Gaza, and that he doesn’t want to spend any US money on Gaza,” the Republican senator for Missouri, Josh Hawley, said, according to the Washington Post. Trumps idea to rebuild emerged after an on-the-spot report from Witkoff who said the entire enclave had reduced to a rubble by the Israeli bombing.
Defence secretary Pete Hegseth said the Pentagon is prepared to look at “all options” when it comes to Gaza. Hegseth made the comments on Wednesday before meeting with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Gaza was “an integral part of the State of Palestine” and that “we will not allow the rights of our people … to be infringed on”.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, warned against “any form of ethnic cleansing”, adding that it is “vital to stay true to the bedrock of international law”. The UN chief said that any durable peace will require a “tangible, irreversible and permanent” progress toward the two-state solution as well as the establishment of an “independent Palestinian state with Gaza as an integral part”.
An EU spokesperson said Gaza is an “integral part” of a future Palestinian state, and that the bloc remains “fully committed” to a two-state solution.
UK prime minister Keir Starmer said the Palestinians “must be allowed to rebuild” and pursue a two-state solution, while the German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, said Gaza belongs to Palestinians and their expulsion would be “unacceptable and contrary to international law”.
Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry rejected “any attempts to displace the Palestinians from their land” while the Egyptian foreign minister, Badr Abdelatty, expressed support for recovery projects in Gaza without Palestinians leaving the territory.
The UN said forcible deportation of people from occupied territory is “strictly prohibited” under international law, while Human Rights Watch said the policy would be a “moral abomination”. Amnesty International condemned Donald Trump’s comments as “inflammatory, outrageous and shameful”. International law experts said it could amount to a war crime or crime against humanity.
The estimated death toll in Gaza since the start of Israeli operations in the territory after the 7th October 2024 attacks reached 47,552, according to the Palestinian ministry of health on Wednesday.

AUZ opposition leader Peter Dutton is in awe of Trumps proposal on rebuilding Gaza and praises his efforts.
Australian opposition leader Peter Dutton has praised Donald Trump as a “big thinker” in response to the US president’s calls for America to take over Gaza in what would probably be a breach of international law, saying he brought “gravitas” to international affairs.
Dutton claimed Trump’s incendiary remarks could be a negotiating tactic to get other countries in the Middle East to “step up” and help rebuild the Palestinian territory devastated by Israeli bombing. The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, meanwhile continued to avoid commenting directly on the situation on Thursday, saying he believed it was prudent to sometimes “sit back” and not comment on all of Trump’s claims.
Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, said the US president does not want to put any American troops into Gaza. Witkoff was on Capitol Hill on Wednesday to clarify Trump’s comments the day before, during which he did not rule out deploying US troops to the Palestinian territory.
Dozens of UK Labour MPs and four Labour peers have written to the foreign secretary, David Lammy, slamming Donald Trump’s proposal to take over the Gaza Strip. The letter, signed by 68 parliamentarians in total, describes Trump’s plans as “ethnic cleansing” and urges Lammy to recognise an independent Palestine and voice the government’s disapproval “in no uncertain terms”.

Trump’s plans amounted to the “forcible removal and dispossession of an entire population,” said Labour MP for Tooting, Dr Rosena Allin-Khan, according to Labour List.
Amnesty says Trump’s Gaza proposal is ‘appalling’ and ‘flagrant violation’ of international law. Amnesty International has condemned Donald Trump’s proposal to deport Palestinians from Gaza to neighbouring countries, describing his comments as “inflammatory, outrageous and shameful”.
Trump’s proposal “amounts to a flagrant violation of international law” and must be “unequivocally and widely condemned”, the rights group’s secretary general, Agnès Callamard, said.
Any plan to forcibly deport Palestinians outside the occupied territory against their will is a war crime, and when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack on the civilian population, it would constitute a crime against humanity.
The US president Donald Trump with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on February 4, 2025.’s comments “dangerously dehumanise” Palestinians, she said, noting that the majority of Palestinians in Gaza have already been “repeatedly uprooted and dispossessed by Israel” and yet have continued to “struggle to remain on their lands and defend their human rights.”
Donald Trump’s remarks that the US will “take over” Gaza and resettle the Palestinian population elsewhere have drawn outrage and criticism from Palestinian and Arab Americans across the US.
A group of Arab Americans that supported Trump during the 2024 election rebranded itself following Trump’s comments on displacing Palestinians, from “Arab Americans for Trump” to “Arab Americans for Peace”.
Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, told his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, that the international community must bear its responsibility to support the implementation of a two-state solution.
In its readout of the call, the Élysée Palace stated that the two leaders said agreed that any “forced displacement” of the Palestinian population in Gaza or the West Bank would be “unacceptable”, adding: It would be a serious violation of international law, an obstacle to the two-state solution and a major destabilising force for Egypt and Jordan.
Germany’s president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said proposals for the deportation of Palestinians from Gaza were causing “deep concern in some people, even horror”. Steinmeier, speaking after talks with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said such proposals were “not only unacceptable under international law” but would not serve as a “serious basis for talks” between regional actors and the US.
The two most obvious codes potentially breached by the Trump plan are the Geneva conventions – international treaties agreed in 1949 governing the treatment of civilians and military personnel during conflicts – and the 1998 Rome statute, which established the international criminal court to bring to justice individuals suspected of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide where states either cannot or will not do so themselves.
Under both codes, the arbitrary and permanent forcible transfer of populations is a crime.
Canada’s foreign minister said that Canada’s position on Gaza had not changed, and that they are committed to achieving a two-state solution. In a statement posted on social media, Melanie Joly wrote: Canada’s longstanding position on Gaza has not changed. We are committed to achieving a two-state solution, where Israelis and Palestinians can live securely within internationally recognised borders.
There is no role for Hamas in the governance of Gaza. We support Palestinians’ right to self-determination, including from being forcibly displaced from Gaza.
Pete Hegseth has said that the Pentagon is prepared to look at “all options” when it comes to Gaza. Hegseth made the comments on Wednesday before the start of his meeting with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Pentagon, according to Reuters.
“I would just say, on the question of Gaza, the definition of insanity is attempting to do the same thing over and over and over again” Hegseth said. “The president is willing to think outside the box, look for new and unique, dynamic ways to solve problems that have felt like they were intractable” Hegseth added. “We’re prepared to look at all options.”

Gaza Pics Courtesy Hosnysalah, Palestinian photographer currently living in Palestine Gaza Strip
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