US said proposing ‘alternative safe communities’ for Gazans in Israeli-controlled Strip

The Trump administration is advocating for the swift construction of residential compounds in areas of Israeli-controlled Gaza that would provide housing to Palestinians in the enclave, the New York Times reports.

Citing over 20 officials it interviewed, the US newspaper says the compounds would be known as “Alternative Safe Communities,” with each housing between 20,000 and 25,000 Gazans. The compounds, which will be composed of temporary structures, will also include medical clinics and educational facilities.

“There’s a practical issue: How do we get people into safe housing as soon as humanly possible?” senior Trump administration official Aryeh Lightstone, who is in charge of the effort, tells the Times. “This is the easiest way to do that.”

The report notes that it’s unclear how many Palestinians are able or would want to live in the compounds, which if constructed, would only have sufficient space for a small number of the Gaza Strip’s roughly 2 million residents, and how the project would be funded.

Officials quoted in the report also cite concerns over whether Palestinians who move to the compounds would be able to leave and whether Israel could block some potential residents after vetting them.

The report’s core details were first revealed by The Times of Israel at the beginning of November when Arab diplomats relayed that one of the main proposals presented to potential Gulf donor countries envisioned the construction of roughly half a dozen residential regions on the eastern half of the Strip, which is currently under Israeli control.

The diplomats said that “new Gaza” was the term frequently used by US officials to describe the project that will take place on the eastern side of the Yellow Line — the newly created boundary to which the IDF withdrew on October 10 at the start of the Gaza ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas.