Politico magazine reported that Jared Kushner, son-in-law of former President Donald Trump, faced sharp criticism yesterday, Tuesday, for comments in which he described waterfront real estate in the Gaza Strip as “valuable” in the face of the war between Israel and Hamas.

Kushner said that Israel must deport civilians during its work on what he called cleansing the Gaza Strip of Palestinian resistance, to the Negev Desert, or Egypt.

At a March 8 event at Harvard University, Kushner, who served as a senior adviser to Trump during his tenure in the White House, said that “waterfront property in Gaza could be of great value if people focus on building livelihoods.”

“It's a somewhat unfortunate situation there, but from Israel's point of view I will do my best to move people and then clean it up,” Kushner said, according to Politico. He then added that Israel should transfer Palestinian civilians to the Negev Desert in the southern region of the country.

Kushner received swift and sharp backlash on social media, with Dylan Williams, vice president of government affairs at the left-leaning Center for International Policy, posting on One of the faces of the Zionist lobby due to his “record in political work,” Donald Trump’s son - and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, openly calls for ethnic cleansing in Gaza.

It is noteworthy that earlier this month, the Anti-Defamation League awarded Kushner an award for his “vital and highly influential work on the Abraham Accords,” which saw various Arab countries, including the United Arab Emirates, normalize relations with Israel. The Anti-Defamation League said Politico said it stood by the award, pointing to its CEO Jonathan Greenblatt's remarks at the awards ceremony earlier this month that his "public service has uniquely helped advance the cause of peace in the Middle East."

Kushner's comments come in the wake of Republican attempts to reduce the Palestinians' right to land and establish their independent state amid the war waged by Israel against Gaza. "GOP lawmakers have indicated that they would like to see Palestinians leave the territories currently occupied and administered by Israel. One Republican from Tennessee even called for 'killing them all' when confronted by a Palestinian activist," Politico said.

Kushner and his wife, Ivanka, have distanced themselves from Trump since he left office, and Kushner has said he will not return to the White House if his father-in-law is elected president. But he remains an influential figure in Trump's orbit.

The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Despite having no foreign policy experience, Kushner served as an unofficial presidential envoy to Middle Eastern countries during his father-in-law's presidency. He built a close relationship with Saudi Arabia, helped broker the Abraham Normalization Accords, and became the Trump administration's point person for negotiating an end to the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict.