'This Is Fake News': Trump Admin Rejects Reports Claiming US Will Pay $60 Billion For Gaza Reconstruction

(MENAFN- Live Mint) The US State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs on Sunday came down heavily on news reports claiming that the US would pay for more than half of the Trump administration's $112 billion plan to rebuild war-torn Gaza.

"This is fake news. Nowhere in the plan does it say the U.S. will pay $60 billion," the State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs posted on X, rubbishing the report.

While the immediate reaction came against a report by New York Post, the first look into the Donald Trump administration's reconstruction plan for Gaza was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

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Dubbed Project Sunrise, as reported by WSJ, the "sensitive but unclassified" $112 billion proposal was drafted by a team led by Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, with inputs from Israeli officials.

A 32-slide PowerPoint presentation in its current state, photos of the document reveal the Trump administration's vision for a futuristic Gaza, replete with beachside luxury resorts, high-speed rail transport, and AI-optimized smart grids.

A slide titled "Transformation | Digitally-Driven Smart City" declared, "Reimagining Gaza as a 'smart city' with tech-driven governance and services."

The plan proposes a "revitalized Rafah", which would become Gaza's seat of governance, and home to over half a million people.

As per the plan, this revitalized Rafah would have over 100,000 permanent housing units, 200+ K-12 schools, universities, and vocational schools, and 75+ medical clinics and hospitals.

Under Project Sunrise, Rafah would also have 180+ mosques/cultural centres, and have $4 billion worth of investments in utilities and infrastructure, as well as $1 billion investment in the development of commercial zones, business districts, and malls and retail centres.

Project Sunrise also envisions monetizing 70% of Gaza's coastline eventually, and projects over $55 billion in long-run investment returns.

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A slide showing the breakdown of costs of Project Sunrise puts the 10-year-total at $112.1 billion, including humanitarian costs (excluding OPEX), security costs, housing reconstruction, and infrastructure and utility reconstruction, among others.

Over the 10-year-period, biggest chunk would go into housing reconstruction ($36.1 billion), followed by humanitarian costs ($26.5 billion), infrastructure and utilities reconstruction (18.2 billion), and security costs ($9.1 billion).

The total also includes payroll and non-payroll public sector OPEX, estimated to cost $9.8 billion and $11.3 billion respectively.

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According to WSJ, just under $60 billion of Project Sunrise's total costs would be financed by grants ($41.9 billion) and new debt ($15.2 billion), with the US agreeing to anchor at least a fifth of the support.

The executive summary of the document shared by the WSJ states, "Critically, the USA will be a substantial (20%+) anchor of total costs for all the contemplated workstreams."

However, the slide does not clarity how much upwards of 20% the US government would anchor.

The World Bank will also play a financing role in Project Sunrise.

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Project Sunrise could begin in as soon as two months if security conditions allow, WSJ reported citing Trump administration officials.

However, implementation of the reconstruction plan is "contingent on comprehensive compliance by Hamas to de-militarize and decommission all weapons and tunnels," the document states.

Official estimates suggest that around 10,000 bodies remain buried in Gaza under 68 million tonnes of rubble, a result of thousands of Israeli strikes during the two-year-long war sparked by the Hamas' attack on Israel on 7 October 2023.

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