Smotrich: Gaza a potential real estate ‘bonanza,’ Israel talking with US about dividing it up

[Right_in_Virginia]

Smotrich: Gaza a potential real estate ‘bonanza,’ Israel talking with US about dividing it up
Finance minister says ‘demolition’ is done, ‘now we just need to build’; also slams Netanyahu’s comparison of Israel to Sparta
Times of Israel, Sep 17, 2025

Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Wednesday said that the Gaza Strip was a potential real estate “bonanza” and that he was in talks with the United States on how to divide up the coastal enclave after the war, once again making clear his desire to transform the enclave into Israeli territory.

Speaking at a real estate conference in Tel Aviv, the minister said the opportunity “pays for itself,” and he has “already started negotiations with the Americans.”

We have paid a lot of money for this war. We have to see how we are dividing up the land in percentages,” Smotrich said, adding that “the demolition, the first stage in the city’s renewal, we have already done. Now we need to build.”

He added, “There is a business plan, put together by the most professional people here, that is on President Trump’s desk.”

In an interview with his Religious Zionism party’s Ofek weekend newsletter last month, Smotrich said he was working to reestablish the former Israeli settlements of Ganim and Kadim in the northern West Bank, both of which were evacuated and dismantled during Israel’s disengagement from Gaza in 2005, when it withdrew all of its settlers and soldiers.

In July, he spoke at a Knesset conference called “The Gaza Riviera – from vision to reality,” at which participants presented plans for reestablishing Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip. There, he said that Gaza would become an “inseparable part of the State of Israel.”

In May, he said the population of the territory would be confined to just a narrow swath of land, with the remainder of the enclave “totally destroyed.”

Smotrich claimed in July that his vision has US President Donald Trump’s backing. Trump in February said the US would take over Gaza, relocate its residents, and turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”


https://www.timesofisrael.com/smotrich-gaza-is-real-estate-bonanza-israel-talking-with-us-about-dividing-it-up/

[DefiantMassRINO]

bad location, bad location, bad location

[Right_in_Virginia]

Israeli minister touts Gaza 'real estate bonanza', defying international backlash
BBC, Sep 18, 2025

Israel's far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich has said the Gaza Strip could be a "real estate bonanza" and that he is in talks with the US about dividing up the territory after the war - an idea previously condemned internationally.

Speaking at an event in Tel Aviv, he said "a business plan is on President Trump's table".

"We've done the demolition phase... Now we need to build," he said.

In February, Donald Trump floated plans for the US to take "a long-term ownership position" over Gaza, saying it could be the "Riviera of the Middle East".

The idea would involve the forced displacement of Palestinians in the territory and be in violation of international law.

But the Washington Post reported earlier this month a version of the idea was again under discussion, and would involve Gaza being turned into a trusteeship administered by the US for at least a decade while it is developed into a tourism resort and high-tech manufacturing hub.

Israel's military campaign in Gaza, which has involved mass air strikes and building demolitions, has caused widespread destruction to the territory.

The United Nations (UN) estimates 92% of housing units have been damaged or destroyed, 91% of schools will require full reconstruction or major rehabilitation to be fully functional again, and 86% of cropland is damaged.

The UN estimated in February that the reconstruction of the territory would cost $53.2 billion (£46.1bn) over the next 10 years.

"We paid a lot of money for this war," said Smotrich. "So we need to divide how we make a percentage on the land marketing later".


More:  https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y59z6rznvo

[Right_in_Virginia]

Keep an eye on Kushner ..,...

[DCPatriot]

Keep an eye on Kushner ..,...

Please tell me they're not going to build casinos/hotels and marinas over GAZA!!  /S

[Right_in_Virginia]

Smotrich: Gaza a potential real estate ‘bonanza,’ Israel talking with US about dividing it up
Finance minister says ‘demolition’ is done, ‘now we just need to build’; also slams Netanyahu’s comparison of Israel to Sparta
Times of Israel, Sep 17, 2025

We have paid a lot of money for this war. We have to see how we are dividing up the land in percentages,” Smotrich said, adding that “the demolition, the first stage in the city’s renewal, we have already done. Now we need to build.”

The Guardian/UK
Sep 18, 2025

More than a quarter of a million people have been displaced from Gaza City in the last month, according to figures from the UN, with tens of thousands more forced to flee makeshift homes and shelters daily in the face of a new Israeli offensive.

Strikes by Israeli artillery, tanks and warplanes hit Gaza City again on Thursday as a UN official said “new waves of mass displacement” were under way, after about 60,000 fled the new assault in 72 hours earlier this week.

Israeli military officials say the total number following Israeli orders to evacuate Gaza City is much higher.

An unbroken column of traffic heavily laden with household utensils, blankets, mattresses, gas cylinders and often entire families packed Gaza’s narrow coastal road on Thursday as a steady stream of Palestinians headed south towards areas designated by Israel.

Prices for transport have soared, forcing some to walk, laden with belongings and young children. “We are heading to go sleep on the streets towards the beach, like this, barefoot … We don’t know where to go,” said Yasser Saleh, speaking as he stood on a rickety trailer being pulled by a car.

Israeli military officials said Gaza City was a “Hamas stronghold” and that as many as 450,000 civilians had left. The estimate was based on multiple sources, including drone surveillance, an official told the Guardian.

Israeli forces now control Gaza City’s eastern suburbs and in recent days have moved into the Sheikh Radwan and Tel al-Hawa areas, from where they would be positioned to advance on the central and western districts where most of the remaining population is sheltering.

Swathes of Gaza City, once a busy commercial and cultural hub, have been reduced to uninhabitable ruins. Until weeks ago, more than a million people were living there, many already displaced numerous times.

The same day, the Israeli military announced the opening of a second route out of Gaza City – through the middle of the Gaza Strip – for two days to try to encourage the exodus. Its Arabic-language spokesperson, Col Avichay Adraee, said the corridor would remain open for just 48 hours.

Shadi Jawad, 47, who fled Gaza City via the route, said: “The situation is indescribable – crowds everywhere, the sound of explosions, women and men crying and screaming as they walked while carrying their belongings.”

The Israeli military has been dropping leaflets urging people to flee towards a designated “humanitarian zone” in the south of the territory, but aid agencies say conditions there are dire, with insufficient food, medicine and space, and inadequate shelter.

Rosalia Bollen of Unicef said: “The area in southern Gaza that people are ordered to go to is a largely overcrowded stretch of dunes. It is inappropriate, unprepared and unsafe to host displaced families with immense humanitarian needs there. And for the hundreds of thousands of people still left in Gaza City – half of them children – we are deeply worried, as airstrikes have been pounding Gaza City.”

Much of northern Gaza is gripped by famine, according to internationally respected experts.


More:  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/18/un-figures-people-displaced-from-gaza-city

[berdie]

I wonder what Hamas would do if they over took Israel.

[Wingnut]

When Palestinians are all dead. The world will a better place.