Gaza: From ‘master plan’ to peace plan?

During my various visits to the Gaza Strip,¹ I met many educated young people. Most of them were jobless, hopeless, and angry. I thought about those youths as I watched Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and advisor, presenting the United States’ “master plan” for Gaza at the World Economic Forum meetings in Davos. This “master plan” includes a coastal tourism zone along the seafront with 180 skyscrapers; an urban development in Rafah that includes some 100,000 housing units, 200 schools, and 75 medical facilities; and a modern industrial and business center in Gaza City.

The plan’s cost is estimated at $25 billion. It is important here to remember that the international community has already rebuilt Gaza four times since 2007 and should avoid throwing more good money after bad. The vicious cycle of war-reconstruction-war again needs to be broken, but will only happen once the root causes of the conflict are resolved and young Palestinians can find jobs, hope, and dignity. Reconstruction should be carried out in a way that supports peace and stability. Young Gazans must be fully included in the new economy and society. Youth who feel economically and socially excluded are easy targets for extremism and violence.

There is broad agreement that to achieve sustainable peace, Palestinians need to have hope and dignity. Kushner emphasized this point in his presentation. However, while he greatly detailed plans for Gaza’s physical construction, he was less clear about how to achieve a thriving and inclusive society. The late Martin Indyk wrote in 2024 that “there is no credible way to bring the war in Gaza to an end without trying to fashion a new, more stable order there.” The challenge now is to fashion this new order.

A new, more stable order implies redefining Gaza’s social contract to provide voice, employment, and hope for its youth. In addition to the physical construction, it would require (1) ending the blockade and allowing the free movement of people and goods in and out of Gaza; (2) giving Gazans more say in the selection of reconstruction priorities and involving them in implementing projects; (3) governance reforms in Gaza and the West Bank; and (4) agreement on Palestinian self-determination.

An important positive feature of the plan is that it includes the construction of a seaport and an airport. This implies that the blockade will end and Gaza will be open to the world. Gaza has been under a blockade, which severely limited the movement of people and goods in and out of the strip, since 2007. The blockade is so strict that the Israeli historian and political scientist Ilan Pappé referred to Gaza as the “ultimate maximum security prison.” According to both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the blockade is in large part responsible for the terrible economic conditions that existed in Gaza even before the latest war. From 2007-2021, real per capita gross domestic product fell at an average rate of 2.5% every year; by 2023, the unemployment rate was 45%, nearly 64% of all Gazans lived in poverty, and 80% of households depended on international humanitarian assistance. Removing the blockade is necessary to bring about the growth and jobs needed to give hope and dignity to Gazans.

The launch of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), which held its first meeting on January 15, 2026, is another positive step. It provides some hope that this time around, Palestinians will have some voice in Gaza’s reconstruction while waiting for elections to take place. The committee consists of 15 unelected Palestinian technocrats, who lack broad popular legitimacy but will be running the day-to-day affairs in Gaza while reporting to Trump’s “Board of Peace.” Its chairman, Ali Shaath, posted on X that the committee’s mission “is to rebuild the Gaza Strip not just in infrastructure but also in spirit.”

To rebuild Gaza’s spirit, the NCAG must consider establishing mechanisms for community participation in Gaza’s reconstruction. There are many successful examples where such mechanisms were used to support reconstruction, including in Indonesia and Timor-Leste. Gazans need to own the reconstruction program. Hence, they should be able to adjust the United States’ plan to reflect their needs and realities on the ground.

Building mechanisms for community participation could be a step toward broader governance reforms. An open, transparent, and stable system of governance is necessary to attract the investments needed to implement the plan and to mobilize Palestinian popular support for reconstruction and peace. There have been no elections in Palestine since 2005, when presidential elections brought Mahmoud Abbas to power, and 2006, when Hamas won the legislative elections. Therefore, it is no surprise that most Palestinians do not feel that their leaders are legitimate.

A 2023 opinion poll found that 87% of Palestinians thought that the Palestinian Authority (PA) was corrupt. Hamas did not fare much better, as 72% of Palestinians thought that Hamas was corrupt. Moreover, a 2025 poll showed that if presidential elections were held at that time, the jailed Palestinian activist Marwan Barghouti would easily win against both Abbas and any candidate fielded by Hamas.

Conducting governance reforms and genuinely free and fair elections are hard to imagine under occupation, unless there is a serious move toward the creation of a Palestinian state. The Israeli occupation has contributed to Palestine’s poor state of governance in two ways. First, the failure of the Oslo Accords and the continued occupation have discredited Palestinians who called for peace and argued that diplomacy would lead to self-determination. It strengthened groups who called for armed struggle and deprioritized building democratic institutions. The 2023 poll referred to earlier indicated that 53% of Palestinians were convinced that armed struggle was the most effective way to achieve self-determination, but this support had declined to 41% by the time of the 2025 poll.

Second, as described by Tal Schneider, in order to maintain the occupation and avoid negotiations that would lead to a Palestinian state, successive Israeli governments—headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—have facilitated financing for Hamas to keep the Palestinians divided between the PA in Ramallah and Hamas in Gaza. The result was nearly 20 years without elections in Palestine.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has brought pain and suffering to both peoples, and today there is an opportunity to end it. By cooperating on Gaza reconstruction and agreeing on a two-state solution, Israelis and Palestinians can transform their relationship from one of occupiers and occupied to one of neighbors and partners. The benefits to Palestinians from having their own state and rebuilding their economy are clear. Israel would also benefit from full integration in the region and access to regional capital and consumer markets. Above all, both peoples will benefit from the end of fighting, destruction, and death.  

The “master plan” that Kushner presented at Davos, if accompanied by economic and governance reforms, and an agreement on Palestinian self-determination, could become more than a blueprint for fixing broken infrastructure and building glitzy skyscrapers. It could become the key to opening a new era of peace, stability, and prosperity in the Middle East.