US pitches 'New Gaza' development plan; Israeli fire kills five Palestinians

By Steve Holland, Rami Ayyub and Nidal al-Mughrabi

DAVOS, Switzerland/JERUSALEM/CAIRO, Jan 22 (Reuters) - The United States on Thursday announced plans for a "New Gaza" rebuilt from scratch to include residential towers, data centres and seaside resorts, part of President Donald Trump's push to advance an Israel-Hamas ceasefire shaken by repeated violations.

In the Gaza Strip, health officials said Israeli airstrikes on Thursday had killed five people in the enclave. There was no immediate Israeli comment on the violence, the latest to fray the October truce accord.

Trump has parlayed the ceasefire into a broader "Board of Peace" initiative aimed at resolving conflicts globally.

After hosting a signing ceremony for the board in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday, Trump invited his son-in-law Jared Kushner to present development plans for Gaza, its densely populated cities and towns now in ruins from two years of war.

"In the beginning, we were toying with (building) a free zone, and then (having) a Hamas zone," Kushner told an audience in Davos of Trump's early plans to rebuild Gaza, where nearly the entire 2 million population is internally displaced.

"And then we said, you know what? Let's just plan for catastrophic success."

'MASTER PLAN'

Kushner presented the audience with a slideshow depicting a "master plan" for what he termed a "New Gaza", displayed on a colour-coded map with areas reserved for residential development, data centres and industrial parks.

The slides included an image of a Mediterranean coastline packed with glittering towers akin to those in Dubai or Singapore. They suggested redevelopment would begin in Rafah in the south, an area under complete Israeli military control.

But they did not address key issues such as property rights or compensation for Palestinians who lost their homes, businesses and livelihoods during the war. Nor did they address where displaced Palestinians might live during the rebuilding.

Kushner did not say who would fund the redevelopment, which would first require clearing an estimated 68 million tons of rubble and war debris.

A conference will be held in Washington in the coming weeks "where we'll announce a lot of the contributions that will be made ... from the private sector," Kushner said, without elaborating.

The slides shown by Kushner were nearly identical to slides leaked to the Wall Street Journal in December. The newspaper reported then that the U.S. had offered to "anchor" 20% of the redevelopment project, without going into detail.

Trump has floated the idea of transforming long-impoverished and dilapidated Gaza into the "Riviera of the Middle East", an idea that has drawn criticism from Palestinians.

RAFAH CROSSING

Kushner's presentation in Davos followed remarks by Ali Shaath, the Palestinian technocrat leader backed by Washington to administer the enclave under Trump's 20-point plan for Gaza.

A key unfulfilled element of the ceasefire has been the reopening of Gaza's key Rafah border crossing with Egypt for the entry and exit of Palestinians. Shaath, speaking by video link, announced the Rafah crossing would open next week.

"Opening Rafah signals that Gaza is no longer closed to the future and to the war," Shaath said.

Israel, which controls the Gaza side of the crossing, has rejected reopening it until Hamas fulfills its ceasefire obligation of returning the remains of the last hostage held in the territory.

After Shaath's announcement, an Israeli political source said a special effort was being made to return Ran Gvili's remains and that Israel would discuss reopening the crossing starting next week.

PERSISTENT VIOLENCE

The next phase of Trump's Gaza plan would see Hamas disarm and international peacekeepers deploy in the crowded, coastal enclave as Israeli troops withdraw further. The first phase left Israel in control of well over half of Gaza, with Hamas holding a sliver of territory along the coast.

Israel has continued to carry out air and artillery strikes in Gaza, often accusing Hamas militants of preparing attacks on its troops or encroaching into areas it controls.

Health officials at Al Shifa Hospital, Gaza's largest, said four Palestinians were killed on Thursday by Israeli tank shelling in the Zeitoun suburb of eastern Gaza City. A fifth person was killed by Israeli fire in Khan Younis in the south, health officials said.

Israel's military did not immediately provide comment.

A day earlier, Israeli fire killed 11 people including two boys and three journalists, health officials said. On Thursday, Palestinians in Gaza held funerals for the three journalists, who press advocates said had been using a drone to film tents housing displaced people.

Without providing evidence, the Israeli military said the drone they were operating was "affiliated with Hamas" and "posed a threat to (troops') safety." The troops "precisely struck the suspects who activated the drone", the military said.

Israel has killed more than 480 Palestinians since the ceasefire took effect, health officials say, while militants have killed three Israeli soldiers.

Israel launched its air and ground war in Gaza after a Hamas-led cross-border attack on October 7, 2023 that killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies. Israel's assault has killed 71,000 Palestinians, health authorities say.

(Reporting by Steven Holland, Rami Ayyub, Nidal al-Mughrabi and Pesha Magid; editing by Mark Heinrich)