By Alexander Cornwell
JERUSALEM, Feb 5 (Reuters) – The United Arab Emirates has drafted plans to build a compound to house thousands of displaced Palestinians in a part of south Gaza under Israeli military control, according to a map seen by Reuters and people briefed on the plans.
The planning map shows where the “UAE Temporary Emirates Housing Complex” would be constructed near Rafah, once a city of a quarter million people but now almost completely destroyed and depopulated by Israeli forces.
Rafah, near the Egypt border, is where reconstruction of Gaza is expected to start under U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan for a durable peace in the densely populated coastal enclave after two years of devastating war.
Donors have been reluctant to commit funds to the plan, worried that disagreements over disarming Hamas militants could lead the parties back to full-scale conflict.
However there are doubts about the political viability of the Emirati project, as most Palestinians could balk at being housed in an Israeli-controlled zone while the vast majority of civilians live in Hamas-run areas of Gaza, diplomats said.
Trump’s plan saw the establishment of a U.S.-led, multinational mission for Gaza based in southern Israel, where Emirati officials have shared details of their plans to build temporary housing and provide basic services in Rafah, four diplomats briefed on the initiative said.
The map shows that the UAE housing would sit near the “yellow line” agreed under an October ceasefire to demarcate Israeli- and Hamas-controlled areas.
In response to questions for this story, an Emirati official said the Gulf country “remains committed to scaling up its humanitarian efforts to support Palestinians in Gaza”, without confirming or denying plans to build the temporary housing site.
‘CHOKING HAMAS OFF’
One of the diplomats said the Israeli military had cleared a large area leading from the Mediterranean coast toward Rafah for temporary housing projects like the one the UAE was planning.
The diplomats said the Emirati initiative resembled a U.S. proposal to build temporary housing for Palestinians in areas of Gaza that are still controlled by Israel. U.S. officials initially described their plan as “Alternative Safe Communities” and more recently as “Planned Communities”, the diplomats said.
American officials had hoped that building housing in the Israeli-controlled areas could generate momentum toward Hamas’ disarmament, encouraging Gazans to leave Hamas-controlled zones and depriving the Islamist group of a civilian population.
Kenneth Katzman, a Middle East expert at The Soufan Center, a U.S.-based, security-focused think tank, said the “Alternative Safe Communities” were designed as a way of gradually “choking Hamas off”, but for it to be effective, it would have to be built at scale, housing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.
“Only a couple of housing projects is not going to defeat Hamas. You need to do a lot … to have an effect,” he said.
DOUBTS ON NUMBERS
The UAE, which established diplomatic relations with Israel in 2020 under a Trump-brokered accord, sees Hamas and other political Islamist groups as threats to Middle East stability.
The four diplomats doubted whether Palestinians would move in large numbers to areas under Israeli control and questioned whether the proposals risked a permanent division of Gaza.
But unlike the U.S. initiative, the Emiratis had identified a site where no homes previously existed, the diplomats said.
The Israeli military controls about 53% of Gaza, including its southernmost area that encompasses the ruined city of Rafah. Hamas controls the rest of the territory, where nearly all of Gaza’s two million Palestinians are living in crowded tent camps and amid the rubble of destroyed neighbourhoods.
Foreign diplomats and aid workers say that humanitarian aid and shelter should be directed to areas where there are many people. About 20,000 Palestinians are thought to be inhabiting areas of Gaza under Israeli military control, diplomats say.
(Reporting by Alexander Cornwell; editing by Rami Ayyub and Mark Heinrich)
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