US plans 'temporary housing' in Gaza behind Israeli lines: Report

The US is weighing a plan to build housing for thousands of "screened" Palestinians behind the so-called yellow line in Gaza, which is occupied by Israeli troops, according to a report by The Atlantic published on Monday. 

The US and Israeli officials working on the plan termed them as "Alternate Safe Communities". Palestinians would be screened for “anti-Hamas” sentiment before being granted entry into the compounds. 

The proposal was discussed in an email by US Lieutenant General Patrick Frank, who is heading the civil-military coordination centre overseeing the Gaza ceasefire, which has been marred by regular Israeli violations.

In an email reported by The Atlantic, Frank said that each settlement should include a medical centre, a school, an administrative building, and temporary housing for about 25,000 people. But the Atlantic reported that the plan is constantly shifting, and the number of occupants slated to live in the developments changes "almost by the day". 

"A team of US, UK, and Israeli military officials working on the project has already revised the intended occupancy of each community down to about 6,000, from an original estimate of 25,000," the Atlantic reported. 

President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and advisor, Jared Kushner, publicly floated the idea of the US and its partners reconstructing parts of Gaza occupied by Israeli troops, while leaving the destroyed enclave’s core, which is governed by Hamas, destroyed.

The idea of dividing Gaza has plenty of pitfalls, but in recent weeks, two Arab diplomats familiar with the US peace plan said they were taking the US push seriously.

The Financial Times reported that the proposed plans have alarmed Arab states and European countries as potentially being the first step in a permanent occupation of a portion of Gaza. 

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According to the Atlantic, less than two percent of Gaza’s two million-strong population lives behind the so-called yellow line. This barrier is supposed to be temporary.

Trump’s 20-point peace plan envisions Israel eventually withdrawing all of its troops from Gaza with the exception of a small security perimeter. Israeli troops are supposed to move out as an Arab peacekeeping force enters. Eventually, that force is envisioned to hand security over to a “reformed” Palestinian Authority.

The US plan provides no timeline for Israel’s withdrawal.

At its core, the plan would require Palestinians in central Gaza to willingly accept living under territory controlled by Israeli troops.

The plan also needs money. The Trump administration has not pledged any US sovereign funds for Gaza’s reconstruction. Trump says he wants Gulf states to invest.

The Atlantic reported that a senior administration official said at least one pilot city would be built in southern Gaza near Rafah, which is home to the enclave’s border with Egypt.

Of course, one of many elephants in the room is Palestinian ownership of the land on which the sites will be built. The Gaza Strip has a formal land registry. The registry was run by Hamas but followed the basic institutional framework of the Palestinian Authority’s system.

Israel has reduced most of Gaza to rubble. The United Nations estimates that the enclave’s reconstruction will cost roughly $70bn. In the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, the government and settlers have seized swaths of Palestinian land and evicted thousands of Palestinian families from their homes.

The Atlantic said that Israel’s Shin Bet would scan applicants to live in the housing complexes. One criterion would not only be whether an individual had ties to Hamas, but their wider family’s ties to the group.

Hamas has governed Gaza since 2007. After winning Palestinian legislative elections, it clashed with secular rival Fatah, which exercises limited control of the occupied West Bank through the Palestinian Authority.

According to The Atlantic, a US-based engineering and consulting firm that works with the US military, Tetra Tech Solutions, has already been awarded a State Department contract to clear unexploded ordinance and rubble from the site of the first Alternate Safe Community.