On January 22, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jared Kushner presented a “Master Plan” for the future of Gaza. Kushner’s slideshow featured glossy images of coastal skyscrapers, a new tourism district with 180 towers, an airport, a seaport, and industrial complex zones. A phased reconstruction timeline promised to transform “New Rafah” and “New Gaza” into modern metropolises. “In the Middle East, they build cities like this in three years,” Kushner said. “This is very doable.” Gaza’s GDP, he claimed, would exceed $10 billion by 2035; more than half a million jobs would be created; private investment for utilities and public services would reach at least $25 billion. New Rafah alone would contain more than 100,000 housing units; 200 education centers; 180 cultural, religious, and vocational institutions; and 75 medical facilities.

The Master Plan was shared as part of the establishment of President Donald Trump’s so-called Board of Peace. An earlier variation of the plan envisioned the construction of artificial islands with luxury resorts offshore — part of a broader ambition for what has been dubbed the “Gaza Riviera.” Rendered in artificial-intelligence graphics, skyscrapers hovered like a vision overlooking the coastline where decades of blockade and war have reduced seaside infrastructure to rubble.

Tellingly, the Davos slideshow just briefly mentioned basic services like water, electricity, and sewage for Palestinians in war-decimated Gaza. Kushner’s presentation mentions Palestinians in the context of “demilitarization principles,” claiming this process will be “led by Palestinians, internationally verified.” The Palestinian public were not involved, not even consulted, in the drafting of these visions. Almost every decision about where they will live, how they will move, and what kind of life they may rebuild was made without them. “From the private sector,” Kushner added, “there will be amazing investment opportunities.”

The reality on the ground in Gaza could not be further removed from these fantasies. The Master Plan does not address how to remove the estimated thousands of tons of unexploded ordnance embedded across the territory or the 61 million metric tons of debris that the U.N. estimates must be cleared before Gaza can begin rebuilding for the long term. Some 80 percent of Gaza’s buildings are destroyed or damaged, forcing much of the population to live in makeshift tents. The territory’s drinkable water is polluted, its agricultural sector all but wiped out. There are thousands of amputees in need of prosthetics and rehabilitation, thousands with permanent hearing damage, thousands of burn cases, and thousands requiring specialist treatment outside Gaza who are unable to leave.

Nour Alsaqqa, a media and communications officer in Gaza, has followed the Board of Peace’s proposals from afar. So has nearly everyone else she knows in the territory — they talk about it on their donkey carts (the dominant form of transportation now that fuel is scarce), at vegetable stalls, in the ubiquitous camps that stretch across acres of devastation. Seven months into the cease-fire that went into effect in October, violence is still a daily reality. “We’ve gone from a hundred people killed a day to a few killed a day,” she said, “which is considered okay.” Drones menace the remaining buildings. Warships advance suddenly toward the shore without warning. Alsaqqa, 26 years old, moves through hospitals and displacement camps for work. She has lived in a rented apartment with seven family members since their home was destroyed. In April, she was on her way to work when the street she had just been walking on was bombed. “You’re never safe,” she said. “It’s just a matter of luck.”

Near-daily aid convoys are permitted, but they have largely been insufficient to sustain the population’s basic needs. Batteries for solar panels, for example, the primary source of electricity during two years of fuel scarcity, are banned from entering the Strip. Alsaqqa told me that the existing batteries are worn out and, if found, prohibitively expensive. There are severe shortages of essential medications for chronic diseases. Shelter materials are blocked, as is water and sanitation equipment. She told me about a displacement camp that collapsed in winter when it rained; it had not included a single bathroom, partly because the sewage system is largely destroyed. The only thing being built in Gaza right now, Alsaqqa said, is more tents.

The map that preoccupies Gazans does not feature artificial islands but rather the Yellow Line, a physical barrier that demarcates where people can live. The line has been advancing incrementally, unstoppably, west into the Strip, pushing Gazans into an ever-narrower band between the sea and a wasteland buffer zone. More than 50 percent of Gaza’s territory is currently inaccessible to Palestinians.

From Alsaqqa’s perspective, it’s obvious that the Board of Peace’s proposals aren’t meant to restore life in Gaza. Rather, they serve interests that are mostly American, Israeli, and Gulf in character. “The talk of the hour now is fuel, oil, the prices of goods,” she said. “Because people need to survive.”

As far-fetched and out of touch as the Master Plan may seem, it is already being presented to donor countries and investors as reference points for reconstruction priorities. This is not to say that many believe the Master Plan or the Gaza Riviera will magically materialize in the next few years or even decades. In fact, the Financial Times reported earlier in May that the Board’s official fund has zero money in it.

Rather, the Board’s political and economic vision for Gaza is quietly embedded,  alongside the AI-generated mirages, in the Master Plan, under which Gaza’s economy will exist only within stifling, controllable channels. There is a cursory suggestion its people will have rights, protections, or autonomy. Gaza, as planned, will be a peripheral appendage to Greater Israel, a captive population toiling for low wages and a meager........

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