US plans compounds to house Palestinians in Israeli-held half of Gaza

Jerusalem: The Trump administration is pushing for the rapid construction of a number of residential compounds to provide housing for Palestinians in Israeli-controlled parts of the war-ravaged Gaza Strip, an effort that is fraught with risks and potential pitfalls.

The compounds, or “Alternative Safe Communities,” as US officials are calling them, will be concentrated in the eastern half of Gaza, currently controlled by Israel since a ceasefire took effect in October. Few of Gaza’s 2 million Palestinians remain there. Most are crammed in the Hamas-controlled part of the enclave where the United States and Israel are not yet allowing any reconstruction.

US officials hope Palestinians will feel encouraged to move to the new compounds, drawn to the prospect of greater security, freedom from Hamas, job opportunities and a chance to rebuild their lives.

The vision of US officials involves the creation of a string of model compounds — more permanent than tent villages, but still made up of structures meant to be temporary. Each could provide housing for as many as 20,000 or 25,000 people alongside medical clinics and schools, US officials and European diplomats say.

“There’s a practical issue: How do we get people into safe housing as soon as humanly possible?” Aryeh Lightstone, a senior Trump administration official who is leading the effort, said in an interview. “This is the easiest way to do that.”

In the short term, the plan could offer relief for thousands of Palestinians who have endured two years of war. In the long term, the proposal has raised questions about whether it could entrench a de facto partition of Gaza into Israeli and Hamas controlled zones.

This article is based on interviews with 20 officials from the United States, Europe and Israel working on or briefed on the plans for postwar Gaza, including diplomats, military officers and aid workers. Nearly all insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Some details of these compounds were previously reported by The Atlantic.

There are many complications. Officials involved in or briefed on the planning efforts have raised a number of concerns, including whether Palestinians would be able to leave the compounds and if Israeli vetting could mean that many Palestinians are blacklisted from moving to them.

It’s also unknown whether Palestinians would be able or willing to move to them anyway. Even if 10 such compounds were built, they would house a fraction of Gaza’s 2 million residents. It is not yet clear how the project would be funded.

The proposal is an outgrowth of the Trump administration’s peace plan, which left Gaza divided into a Hamas-controlled “red zone” and Israeli-held “green zone.” But it also reflects the lack of progress in ousting and disarming Hamas, as the peace plan required, leaving US and Israeli officials to do what they can where they can.

The United States wants to see reconstruction in the parts of Gaza where most people currently live, Lightstone said, but only after Hamas has been dislodged from power there.

Some Palestinians say that rebuilding should be allowed everywhere in Gaza.

“The people in Gaza are not pieces of furniture that you move from one place to another,” said Ayed Abu Ramadan, the chair of the Gaza Governorate Chamber of Commerce. “They have emotions and attachments. They want to be as close as they can to their destroyed homes.”

A key objective, two US officials said, is to kick-start the enclave’s economy by creating jobs, including for the Palestinian laborers who officials say will build the new compounds.

The prime movers of the project are US officials, with Israelis providing necessary support, though they appear to be more skeptical that the compounds will be a step toward a peaceful and prosperous Gaza. European diplomats, United Nations officials and aid workers aware of the project have warned of a range of risks and drawbacks.

The timing

Officials say the first compound will likely not be ready for several months. Israeli soldiers were expected this week to begin clearing the first site in Rafah, near Gaza’s borders with Egypt and Israel. The cost for that compound could run into the tens of millions of dollars, according to two people involved in the planning.

The rubble clearance could stretch to months if crews discover tunnels, unexploded munitions from Israel’s punishing bombardment of Gaza, or human remains, which would need to be disposed of sensitively.

It would then likely take another six to nine weeks to erect prefabricated homes, officials said.

One option being considered is containerized housing units, officials said. Modular dwellings the size of shipping containers have been used before to house refugees in Syria, earthquake victims in Turkey and US troops at military bases across the Middle East.

Officials say that the new compounds are meant to open with housing for several thousand residents and continue growing until they each have tens of thousands.

The team

The undertaking is in some ways an unlikely fit for the Trump administration. As recently as May, President Donald Trump mocked the United States’ long record of “nation building” in the Middle East. Yet his administration is now pursuing a project in Gaza that looks strikingly similar to past such forays in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Lightstone, the Trump official leading the effort, was a top aide to former Ambassador David M. Friedman, the president’s first envoy to Jerusalem. His team includes an eclectic, fluctuating group of US diplomats, Israeli magnates and officials from the Department of Government Efficiency — the sweeping Washington cost-cutting effort overseen earlier this year by Elon Musk.

The team operates out of two luxury beachfront hotels in Tel Aviv, Israel, the Kempinski and the Hilton, where rooms regularly run more than $700 a night, brainstorming ideas and sketching out diagrams of what the new Gaza compounds should look like.

Lightstone was also the CEO of the Abraham Accords Peace Institute, which was founded by Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law. He reports to Kushner, according to officials, although he also is in close contact with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance.

Lightstone’s group has a much broader and longer-range mission than just the compounds. It has kicked around ideas ranging from a new Gaza cryptocurrency to how to rebuild the territory in such a way that it has no traffic, two officials said.

The hurdles

The project on the new compounds is the furthest along. Several issues have slowed its progress.

Security.

Planners want to ensure that residents of the compounds can feel safe, including from Israeli soldiers. They have yet to firm up a plan for how or when the Israeli military would reposition its forces so that the new compounds do not feel besieged.

Some officials say they support the idea of Palestinians policing the compounds. Others want to have the new compounds patrolled by troops from the International Stabilization Force that is envisioned by the Trump peace plan, though it is unclear if and when that force will be assembled.

Freedom of movement.

Some Israeli officials have argued that, for security reasons, Palestinians should only be able to move into the new compounds, not to leave them, according to officials. Several European officials raised concerns about the potential restrictions on movement. Supporters insist that this would be a short-term arrangement until Hamas is disarmed and Gaza comes under one unified government. One person involved in the planning also said that Palestinians living in the new compounds could enjoy greater freedom to leave Gaza, such as for medical treatment, than people in the Hamas-controlled areas.

Vetting potential residents.

Israeli security officials are expected to scrutinize the backgrounds of Palestinians in Gaza who apply to live in the new compounds. What constitutes grounds for rejection has yet to be determined, officials say. European diplomats are concerned that the criteria could wind up blacklisting many public-sector workers such as police officers and health workers, given that Hamas has governed Gaza for 18 years, as well as the relatives of Hamas militants.

Property rights.

US officials say they are addressing the legal hurdle of how to compensate Palestinian property owners whose land is used for the new compounds.

They are exploring ways to pay for the land on which the compounds will be built without getting bogged down in negotiating with thousands of landowners. Still, officials have already begun trying to obtain the land registry from Rafah, according to one person involved.

Partition concerns

Even as they work to hammer out those questions, some European diplomats briefed on the planning lament that little attention has been given to the red zone, where the vast majority of Palestinians live.

Moreover, they argue, every day that passes while the US-led planning effort focuses on the green zone, Hamas is regrouping and consolidating its power.

Some officials have also expressed concern that the compounds may feel more like refugee camps or even internment camps than desirable neighborhoods. An early schematic discussed by diplomats at the US military’s operations hub showed four clusters of homes, along with a school, hospital and employment center, surrounded by patrol roads, fences, surveillance cameras and military outposts. The only thing softening its otherwise harsh institutional feel was an inner ring of trees.

What no one involved can know, of course, is whether Gaza residents will embrace the new compounds. One official and a person involved in the planning said that much could depend on whether Hamas seeks to sabotage the effort or treats participants in it as collaborators with Israel, for example by threatening to harm those who move to the new communities if they later return to the red zone.

Mindful that time is not on their side, planners are pressing ahead. The guiding principle, two officials involved said, is to move forward with whatever is feasible, rather than waiting for answers to every open question.