Egypt pushing plan to keep Gazans in Gaza – report

Cairo drafts alternative to Trump’s Gaza resettlement plan with the aim of rebuilding the Strip without relocating the area’s roughly 2 million residents abroad.

By World Israel News Staff

Egypt is drafting an alternative plan for the future of the Gaza Strip, an Egyptian state media outlet has reported, hoping to replace President Donald Trump’s proposal to resettle the entire population of Gaza abroad.

The Al-Ahram newspaper, a mouthpiece of the Cairo government, reported that the Egyptian government is working to put together a comprehensive plan under which the roughly two million Gazans living in the Gaza Strip would remain in the coastal enclave during the reconstruction of the war-torn area.

Under the plan, Gazans would be temporarily resettled internally within the Gaza Strip in “secure areas” while debris is cleared out of the Strip and towns and infrastructure rebuilt by Egyptian and foreign companies.

Senior Egyptian officials have begun discussing the plan, which is still in development, with officials from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and a number of European states.

A non-partisan Palestinian Arab body, separate from both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority government in Ramallah, would be tasked under the plan with administering the Strip, while a new police force made up of former PA police would provide security – with the help of additional security personnel trained by Western advisers.

Egypt hopes to “refute American President Trump’s logic,” the report said.

On February 4th, Trump announced his plans to resettle Gaza’s population in third-party countries, including Egypt and Jordan, with reports suggesting the U.S. is also considering Indonesia, Albania, and several territories in northern and eastern Africa.

Both Egypt and Jordan rejected the plan publicly, with Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, reportedly snubbing Trump, refusing to attend a planned White House meeting in protest of the resettlement plan.