By Lauren Izso, Tal Shalev, Nadeen Ebrahim, CNN
(CNN) — Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich has described Gaza as a potential real estate “bonanza” and claimed he was talking to the United States about how to divide up the war-torn enclave.
Speaking at the Urban Renewal Summit in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, the far-right minister said that Israel and the US had “paid a lot of money for the war, so we need to share percentages on the land sales in Gaza.”
Smotrich also said he had already started negotiations with the US on how to divide Gaza, claiming there was a business plan on the matter sitting “on President (Donald) Trump’s desk.”
CNN has reached out to the White House for comment.
“We have done the demolition phase, which is always the first phase of urban renewal – now we need to build,” he said.
Smotrich’s comments follow similar remarks by Israel’s far-right national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who said on Monday that he planned to build a “magnificent neighborhood” for Israeli police officers in Gaza after Israel’s operation in Gaza City is over.
Trump has previously said that he viewed Gaza as a “big real estate site” and proposed expelling 2.1 million Palestinians from the territory before transforming it into a “Riviera” that would be owned by the US.
In February, the president even posted a video on his Truth Social account – which appears to have been created with generative AI – promoting the transformation of Gaza into a Gulf state-like resort featuring a golden statue of himself, a hummus-eating Elon Musk, and shirtless American and Israeli leaders lounging on a beach.
The proposal received mass condemnation from the international community.
Israel’s far-right has long wanted to move Palestinians out of Gaza, a prospect that critics have said would amount to ethnic cleansing.
Fears are rising further for Gaza’s plight as Israel said it has begun a planned invasion of Gaza City, the enclave’s largest, pushing more than 1 million residents to overcrowded areas further south in the strip.
As of Wednesday, Israeli tanks were stationed on the edge of Gaza City ahead of the planned ground operation, according to eyewitnesses and satellite imagery.