Trump's plan envisages the construction of 180 skyscrapers, 100,000 homes and new infrastructure in Gaza. For the residents, however, it is a chimera. Why?
When Donald Trump talked about how the Gaza Strip would become the "Riviera of the Middle East" a year ago, the contrast between reality and his scenario could not have been greater, writes Julio Segador of ARD. "The potential of the Gaza Strip is incredible. The whole world will want to be there," the US president added at a press conference he gave with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"There is no future in Gaza"
A year after Trump shared his vision, which some observers described as fantastic and others as utopian, conditions in the enclave are anything but livable. In the western parts of Gaza City, refugee tents are lined up one after another. Hundreds of thousands have lost everything. One of them is 50-year-old Umrami, who shows her hopeless situation to journalists from "Reuters": "Here in Gaza, we are locked in a big cage. Why are we locked in? As a human being, as an adult woman, I have the right to live a different life. "But there is no decent life for my children or me," she laments.
Young people in Gaza see no future. Trump's vision of the Riviera is nothing more than the dreams of a real estate tycoon who wants to do business on the backs of the devastated population. Student Hudaya told Agence France-Presse that she wants only one thing - to leave her homeland. "The war has destroyed everything, not only our houses and families," but also our future. There is no future in Gaza."
What will Trump's "new Gaza" look like?
During the World Economic Forum in Davos, Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner described the idea of the Riviera as a plan for the development of the territory. It envisages the construction of 180 skyscrapers, 100,000 homes and new infrastructure - an airport and ports. All this will cost between 25 and 30 billion dollars, Kushner also announced. "The new Gaza - it can be a place with industry, a place where people have confidence, with many jobs, employment, full of opportunities for the people who live there. But first we need security and stable governance," the husband of one of Trump's daughters also said.
However, the plan provides for the complete disarmament of Hamas. But it is unlikely that the terrorist organization will cooperate, ARD notes. Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem commented to the media: "The weapons are legitimate because we use them for self-defense. The issue of weapons will be discussed with the Palestinian army or the Palestinian police, as soon as we create a Palestinian state."
Thus, Trump's vision for Gaza remains a chimera with many unknowns, which remains far from the political and human realities there, summarizes Julio Segador.