UAE-Backed Planned Community in Gaza to Require Biometric Data from Residents
The United Arab Emirates is preparing to finance what is being described as Gaza's first planned community on the devastated outskirts of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip. According to exclusive planning documents and sources familiar with discussions at the US-led Civil Military Coordination Center in Israel, Palestinian residents will gain access to essential services such as education, healthcare, and running water, but only if they submit to biometric data collection and rigorous security vetting.
A Controversial Reconstruction Model
This initiative marks the UAE's inaugural investment in a post-war reconstruction project located within the portion of Gaza currently under Israeli control. The wealthy Gulf state has already contributed over $1.8 billion in humanitarian assistance to Gaza since October 2023, positioning itself as the territory's largest humanitarian donor, according to UAE state media.
Blueprints for this Emirati-supported endeavour are detailed in an unclassified slide deck obtained by the Guardian and initially reported by Dropsite. The UAE's role as the planned financier had not been previously disclosed. The presentation was prepared for a group of European donors who visited the CMCC on 14 January, as confirmed by an aid official who shared information on condition of anonymity. Israeli military planners have reportedly given their approval to the plans.
Integration with US-Led Peace Efforts
The project emerges amidst broader US-led reconstruction efforts overseen by the newly mandated Board of Peace. This group, which includes figures such as Jared Kushner, Steve Witkoff, and Josh Gruenbaum, recently arrived in Abu Dhabi to broker talks between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators. Following Donald Trump's endorsement of its founding charter at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the Board of Peace has been tasked with overseeing Gaza's reconstruction.
A US official suggested that the first Emirati-backed compound could serve as a model for a series of residential camps described by US and Israeli officials as alternative safe communities. The United Arab Emirates has not commented on its decision to endorse the Board of Peace or its plans to fund one of the initial US and Israeli-backed reconstruction projects in Gaza.
Security and Control Measures
Within the first Rafah community, billed as a case study, planners have outlined several measures intended to prevent the influence of Hamas. These include the introduction of electronic shekel wallets designed to mitigate the diversion of goods and funds to Hamas financial channels, and a school curriculum supplied by the UAE that will not be Hamas-based.
Planners specify that residents will be permitted to enter and exit the neighbourhood freely, subject to security checks aimed at preventing the introduction of weapons and hostile elements. However, the plans do not indicate who will conduct these security checks at the entry and exit points.
Building on Destruction
Any new residential compounds will be constructed atop the rubble left from Israel's two-year war on Gaza, an assault that has killed more than 70,000 Palestinians and levelled three-quarters of the territory's structures. According to United Nations estimates, rebuilding Gaza will cost at least $70 billion, with at least three quarters of Gaza's roads, water pipes, and buildings damaged or destroyed by Israeli bombardment.
UN experts believe rebuilding efforts could take up to 80 years, given the extent of destruction. The process will be complicated by the need to clear debris, disarm unexploded ordnance, and retrieve bodies trapped under the rubble.
The 'New Rafah' Vision
Under the terms of Trump's brokered peace agreement, Gaza is now divided into two halves: a green zone controlled by the Israeli military, and a red zone effectively governed by Hamas. Initial reconstruction efforts are only slated for the Israeli-held half of Gaza.
During a presentation at Davos, Kushner dispensed with these artificial divisions, unveiling Board of Peace ambitions to redevelop Gaza's entire Mediterranean coast. A slide titled master plan re-envisioned a map of Gaza featuring eight residential areas spanning the territory, including two development blocks called Rafah 1 and Rafah 2.
The first city, referred to as New Rafah in the Board of Peace slide deck, will be built during an early phase of Trump's 20-point peace plan. The Board of Peace promises 100,000 permanent housing units, 200 education centres, and 75 medical facilities in the new city. A White House spokesperson confirmed that the Emirati-backed compound will be constructed during the Board's initial reconstruction push.
Land Acquisition and Legal Concerns
Land-clearing efforts for the Rafah site are already underway, according to an Israel Defense Forces spokesperson. The spokesperson stated that Israel's mission on the east side of the yellow line is to clear the infrastructure in that territory, including tunnels and booby-trapped houses. They clarified that Israel will not participate in building or running the Emirati compound, but that the International Stabilization Force would participate with boots on the ground when construction begins.
A project timeline obtained by the Guardian indicates that site planning began with a land deed review in late October and will entail at least four to six months of preparations before construction commences. The deed review was a top priority for planners, according to two people briefed on the process. If Palestinian landowners can prove deeded claims to the site, Gulf funders and other groups linked to Gaza's first planned community could be accused of forcible displacement of a civilian population, which constitutes a war crime.
Political Implications and Criticism
Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator, expressed skepticism that the Emirati-backed compound would ever be built, but suggested that the plans serve Israel's political goals regardless. Without one brick being laid, it gives a further layer of permission to Israel clearing the area, and displacing or killing Palestinians in the process, Levy said.
He added that the Emirates' participation allows Israel to insist that construction is proceeding with the support of an Arab state, distracting from the fact that Israel occupies 58% of Gaza. This portion of Gaza they will attempt to label as happy Gaza, with schools and a judiciary and hospitals, Levy remarked.
Surveillance and Human Rights Concerns
To move into the Emirati compound, Palestinians living in the red zone will have to cross an Israeli checkpoint into the green zone, then undergo security vetting and biometric documentation. The plans do not specify who would complete the vetting or manage biometric data collection, nor do they articulate why someone would be turned away.
Palestinians approved for entry will use their Palestinian ID numbers, as issued by the Palestinian Authority in coordination with Israel's COGAT, to join the community registry, according to planning documents.
Matt Mahmoudi, an assistant professor at the University of Cambridge and head of Amnesty International's research on tech and AI, reviewed planning documents for Gaza's first planned community and raised concerns that the plan would expand biometric surveillance in Gaza. Israel's deployment of biometric surveillance reinforces apartheid and the oppression of Palestinians by perpetuating a coercive environment intended to force Palestinians out of areas of strategic interest to Israeli authorities, Mahmoudi said.
Uncertain Future for Reconstruction
The reconstruction process faces significant uncertainty. United Nations programs that once serviced 80% of Gaza's schools have been largely dismantled following Israel's allegations that UN staff participated in the 7 October attack. Israel has barred several longstanding aid groups from Gaza, including those that once staffed and supplied its hospitals or funded community water projects.
Private contractors have been courting White House officials in hopes of securing lucrative reconstruction bids since October, when Trump brokered the peace agreement. One group, led by a Republican insider, has claimed to have an inside track to reconstruction work, as the Guardian reported in December.
Muhammad Shehada, a visiting Middle East fellow for the European Council on Foreign Relations, suggested that reconstruction planners at the CMCC seem to be operating under the assumption that Palestinians will leave the Hamas-controlled red zone and move into newly constructed communities if you dump enough food there. He argued that these tactics may not work and overlook the complex politics of the area, which he said did not interest military planners.
Should Palestinians voluntarily subject themselves to the surveillance and biometric measures proposed for Gaza's first planned community, Levy and others suggested that Israel would be pleased to see this initial case study succeed. As far as Israel is concerned, if Gaza ends up with four or so model Palestinian communities of say 25,000 each, all of them vetted, and everything else is a hellscape where you're further encouraging the ethnic cleansing, or the physical removal of Palestinians from there, that's a desirable outcome, Levy concluded.
