JERUSALEM, Feb 5 – The United Arab Emirates is working on plans to build a temporary housing area for displaced Palestinians in southern Gaza, in a zone currently controlled by Israeli forces, according to a map seen by Reuters and several people familiar with the matter.
The planned site, called the “UAE Temporary Emirates Housing Complex,” would be located near Rafah, once a city of around a quarter million people but now almost fully destroyed after months of fighting.
Rafah which is close to the Egyptian border is being discussed as one of the starting points for Gaza’s rebuilding under a wider U.S.-backed effort aimed at stabilizing the territory following nearly two years of war. Still the donors remain hesitant, the diplomats said while warning that disagreements over Hamas and security could easily pull the region back into conflict.
One diplomat said Israeli forces have cleared a large stretch of land running inland from the Mediterranean toward Rafah, opening space for temporary housing developments.
The proposal resembles earlier U.S. concepts, first called “Alternative Safe Communities” and later renamed “Planned Communities,” diplomats said. A U.S. official confirmed Washington is coordinating with the UAE, along with a newly formed Board of Peace and a U.S.-supported Palestinian administrative committee. American officials believe relocating civilians into Israeli-controlled areas could reduce Hamas’s influence by drawing people away from its territory.
Kenneth Katzman, a Middle East expert at the Soufan Center, said the idea is meant to slowly isolate Hamas, but warned the scale would have to be much larger.“Just a few projects won’t change anything,” he said. “You would need hundreds of thousands housed for it to really have an effect.”
Several diplomats questioned whether Palestinians would move in large numbers to areas under Israeli military control and warned the plan could deepen Gaza’s internal divide.
Unlike some past proposals, the Emirati site would be built on land where no homes previously stood, sources said.
Israel currently controls about 53% of Gaza, including the southern Rafah area. Hamas holds the rest, where almost all of Gaza’s two million residents are packed into overcrowded camps or living among destroyed neighborhoods. Aid workers say help should go where people already are. Only around 20,000 Palestinians are believed to be living in Israeli-controlled parts of Gaza, raising doubts about how much impact the project would have.
Source: Reuters