02
SEP
2025
In order to at least maintain the appearance of compliance with international law, the US-Israeli plans for the Gaza Strip provide that, as a first step, the Israeli government should formally transfer the administrative powers for the area to the GREAT Trust. The Gaza Strip is part of the state of Palestine, which is now recognized by three-quarters of all UN members. But Israel can claim the power to dispose of the territory on the basis of a principle in international law ("uti possidetis juris"), it is said. 1] The latter claim was clearly refuted by the International Court of Justice (IGH) in The Hague in 2024. The plan also provides that the Gaza Strip will be placed under the control of mercenaries from the West in the interior after its transfer to the Trust - in fact a dressing to a US "trust territory" in the style of the colonial era. In the long term, it continues for the sake of a safe-face, "a reformed and de-radicalized Palestinian community" could succeed. There is no mention of a state of Palestine. The GREAT Trust should first have the debris left over after the complete destruction of the Gaza Strip removed and unexploded ordnance, mines and the like. In the next step, he should raise money from investors and guide the reconstruction of the area.
The effort to somehow preserve the appearance of legality is also due to the fact that the planning documents state that residents of the Gaza Strip should be given the opportunity to obtain permanent accommodation in one of the residential buildings to be built in the area. Alternatively, every Palestinian who voluntarily leaves the Gaza Strip should receive $5,000 and money for food (for one year) and rent elsewhere (for four years). This is significantly cheaper than the cost of accommodation and food in the cordoned-off camps that Israel will set up in parts of the Gaza Strip, it is said; the GREAT Trust saves $23,000 per voluntarily departing Palestinian.[ 2] Israel's former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who once belonged to the Likud party of current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and has long advocated the Gaza war, has recently explicitly called the planned closed camps "concentration camps". 3]
In reality, the Israeli approach is not aimed at taking in Palestinians in the planned new cities of the Gaza Strip or at their voluntary departure, but at their expulsion. Thus, the bombings of medical facilities, which make survival in the Gaza Strip even more difficult, continue. In addition, the famine, which was deliberately brought about by the Israeli government by blockade, continues to rage: a man-made disaster in which the population is "systemically starved to death", experts in the UN Security Council said last week. 4] According to this, at least 132,000 children under the age of five now suffer from acute malnutrition; over 43,000 of them are even threatened with death. The disaster is politically intentional. Israel's Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich recently said that "in a few months" they will be able to "announce the victory": "Gaza will be completely destroyed."[ 5] The population, in turn, will "completely despair"; they will understand "that there is no more hope in Gaza", and the surviving inhabitants of the area will "look for another place to start a new life there". Their violent expulsion would thus be achieved.
In the search for countries to which the approximately two million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip could be deported, Israel and the United States have recently felt ahead, especially on the African continent. Trump said in August that he was currently dealing with the option of recognizing the territory of Somaliland, split from Somalia, as a separate state. In return, the government of Somaliland is ready to settle deportees from Gaza on Somali territory. 6] Israel, in turn, announced in August that it would send medical and other relief supplies to South Sudan.[ 7] South Sudan is one of the countries that are considered a possible deportation destinations for Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. It is also one of the states on the African continent to which the Trump administration has deported unpopular migrants; there is talk of a "dumping ground" for unwelcome immigrants. At the beginning of 2018, Trump had called the countries of Africa "shithole countries". 8]
The plans, which the Washington Post has now reported in detail, are not new. Trump had already said shortly after taking office that "beautiful things" could be done in Gaza; at the same time, he had indicated that he wanted the Palestinians to be removed from the area.[ 9] During a meeting with Netanyahu in February, Trump brought the term "Middle East River" into the conversation; Netanyahu praised it as a "bold vision". Soon, with the cooperation of a team from the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), detailed plans were developed, which the Financial Times first reported on in July. 9] They foresee the construction of six to eight high-tech cities ("smart cities") on the rubble of the Gaza Strip, as well as the construction of AI data centers, factories for the production of electric cars by US corporations, but also luxury resorts - Trump's "Riviera of the Middle East". In addition, the plans are said to re-cement the lost US dominance in the Near and Middle East.
All this is also known in Berlin - without the federal government having drawn consequences for its policy towards Israel or even the United States. Rather, it adheres to its close cooperation with the country's far-right government, while it, in cooperation with the Trump administration, plans a genocidal expulsion crime in the Gaza Strip. The only measure taken so far - a formal permit ban for weapons that can be used in Gaza - is classified by observers as largely inconsequential (german-foreign-policy.com reported [10]). At the end of last week, the German government once again blocked EU measures against the far-right Israeli government – it refused to exclude Israel from the EU research funding program Horizon Europe. Further steps are certainly not considered from Berlin's point of view.[ 11]
[1], [2] Karen DeYoung, Cate Brown: Gaza postwar plan envisions 'voluntary' relocation of entire population. washingtonpost.com 31.08.2025.
[3] S. to The Western Exceptionalism.
[4] Gaza's Population Systematically Being Starved to Death, Speakers Warn Security Council, Demanding Immediate Ceasefire, End to Deliberate Famine. press.un.org 27.08.2025.
[5] Jeremy Sharon: Smotrich says Gaza to be 'totally destroyed,' population 'concentrated' in small area. timesofisrael.com 06.05.2025.
[6] S. about bombs and deportation plans.
[7] Karen DeYoung, Cate Brown: Gaza postwar plan envisions 'voluntary' relocation of entire population. washingtonpost.com 31.08.2025.
[8] Trump: Why allow immigrants from 'shithole countries'? apnews.com 01/11/2018.
[9] Tony Blair's staff took part in 'Gaza Riviera' project with BCG. ft.com 06.07.2025.
[10] S. to this armament cooperation at all costs.
[11] Germany blocks EU sanctions against Israel. dw.com 30.08.2025.