President Donald Trump’s redevelopment plan for Gaza, unveiled in early February 2025, proposes a radical transformation of the war-torn enclave into a “Riviera of the Middle East,” dubbed by some supporters as “MAGAZA.” The plan entails the United States taking long-term ownership of the Gaza Strip, forcibly relocating its 2.2 million Palestinian residents to neighboring countries like Egypt and Jordan, and redeveloping the territory into a modern economic hub with luxurious real estate and tourism potential. Trump, leveraging his background as a real estate mogul, envisions Gaza’s 40 kilometers of Mediterranean coastline as a prime opportunity, suggesting that international developers and Arab states could fund the reconstruction, while the U.S. oversees the removal of unexploded ordnance and Hamas infrastructure. Despite White House clarifications that no U.S. troops or funds would be directly committed, the proposal has sparked outrage globally, with critics decrying it as a blueprint for ethnic cleansing masked as a humanitarian and economic initiative.
 

Hamas’s actions surrounding the October 7, 2023, hostages have significantly bolstered the momentum behind Trump’s plan, as their intransigence deepens international contempt for the Palestinian cause. Following the fragile ceasefire that began on January 19, 2025, Hamas has released only 18 of the remaining 79 hostages, including one American, in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, while negotiations for the second phase—intended to free all captives and end the war—have stalled. Reports of Hamas violating ceasefire terms, such as delaying hostage releases and refusing to disarm, coupled with Israeli claims of continued attacks, have painted the group as an unreliable partner in peace efforts. This has fueled a narrative, amplified by Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that Gaza cannot be rebuilt with its current population and leadership intact, justifying the push to “clean out” the territory. The prolonged suffering of the hostages, including high-profile cases like the Bibas family, has eroded sympathy for Palestinians among Western audiences, aligning public opinion with the drastic measures Trump proposes.
 

The convergence of Trump’s vision and Hamas’s self-destructive behavior is setting the stage for a thorough ethnic cleansing of Gaza, paving the way for its redevelopment as MAGAZA. International condemnation from the UN, Arab states, and human rights groups—who warn that forced displacement violates international law and echoes the 1948 Nakba—has done little to deter the plan’s momentum, especially as Israel’s far-right government cheers it on. Hamas’s refusal to fully comply with ceasefire terms has isolated the Palestinians diplomatically, with even allies like Saudi Arabia distancing themselves by rejecting refugee inflows and tying normalization with Israel to a now-distant Palestinian statehood. As global frustration mounts, the prospect of removing Gaza’s population to enable a “threat-free” reconstruction gains traction, promising a sanitized Mediterranean playground free of Hamas and, in Trump’s words, open to “the world’s people.” This radical shift risks not only erasing Palestinian presence from Gaza but also igniting broader regional instability, all under the guise of a gleaming new “Riviera” rising from the ashes of a 16-month war.