At the summit last week on 4 March, a new plan for Gaza’s reconstruction was presented by Arab leaders as an alternative to Trump’s plan to expel Palestinians from Gaza. Our analysis indicates that this initiative—which has gained support from the European Council—includes an architectural master plan that carries forward key elements of Israel’s designed destruction of Gaza with its proposal for a ‘buffer zone’, security corridors, and raid routes.
The Egyptian master plan consists of three parts.
1. Buffer Zone: Since October 2023, Israel has destroyed all structures within 1,000-1,500 meters of the Gaza perimeter fence and targeted Palestinians who entered this zone. The Egyptian plan integrates the buffer zone into its design and effectively endorses the erasure of multiple historically and politically significant Palestinian neighborhoods, including Jabalia and Shuja’iyya, by rezoning them for agricultural, investment, and industrial purposes.
2. Security corridors: Since October 2023, Israel constructed a six-kilometer-wide impenetrable barrier along Wadi Gaza and expanded the buffer zone along the border with Egypt. The Egyptian master plan incorporates this de facto reality.
Architecture and urban planning have historically been used for population control and counterinsurgency. For decades, Israel has routinely destroyed the dense and meandering fabric of Palestinian refugee camps and neighborhoods, which provided the local population with an advantage that offset the occupier’s technological capabilities. By contrast, housing blocks such as those proposed in the Egyptian plan can be easily invaded and monitored.
3. Raid Routes: Over the last 17 months, we identified 13 raid routes created by the Israeli military, extending from Israeli bases east of the Gaza perimeter fence into the Gaza strip. The Egyptian master plan includes provisions for expanding these routes all the way to the sea, allowing the Israeli military the means to invade and bisect the Gaza Strip.
Images from Egypt’s proposed Gaza reconstruction plan.
See Forensic Architecture’s interactive cartographic platform “Cartography of Genocide,” with video, and ‘A spatial analysis of the Israeli military’s conduct in Gaza since October 2023’ report.
