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

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.”

Palestinians and much of the international community strenuously insist that the enclave must be governed by a Palestinian body after the war and reject the idea of Israeli or US occupation. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly said he does not intend to reestablish Israeli settlements in the Strip, while his far-right allies have talked up their vision of pushing Palestinians out and building Israeli communities on the land.

“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.”

Officials in the White House and US State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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.”

Trump’s plans have been rejected by the Palestinians, the Arab world and most of the international community, in addition to officials from both parties in the US. Trump himself has also placed less focus on such plans after his initial comments.

But last month, The Washington Post reported that the proposal was apparently not quite dead. The report said the Trump administration was weighing a proposal for the postwar reconstruction of Gaza that would put the Strip under US control for a decade and pay roughly a quarter of its population to relocate, many of them permanently.

In addition, Smotrich on Wednesday rejected Netanyahu’s statement earlier this week that Israel was facing increasing isolation and may be required to become a self-reliant economy with “autarkic characteristics” and a kind of “super-Sparta.”

“I do not agree with the prime minister’s words, and I really did not like the comparison to Sparta,” the finance minister said.

Netanyahu’s comments sparked fierce criticism from opposition heads and business leaders and were followed by a dip in the value of shares on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.

In response, the prime minister said on Tuesday that he had “full confidence” in the Israeli economy and sought to clarify that his comments were focused on the defense industries rather than the broader economy.