Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy, said Thursday that he and Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, are discussing bringing together real estate executives to come up with a plan to rebuild Gaza.

“We’re talking about bringing people together from all over the world, master planners, developers, architects, talking about ideas and so on,” Witkoff said on stage in conversation with Kushner at the F11 II Priority conference in Miami, a gathering of business executives sponsored by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund.

Earlier this month, Trump said that “the United States will take over the Gaza Strip” and turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.” Trump said that Gazans could be transferred to neighboring Arab countries and that they should leave Gaza and never return. Most of the world has rejected Trump’s idea, and his comments have drawn condemnation from the Middle East and Europe, which have said that the displacement of Palestinians from Gaza amounts to ethnic cleansing and is illegal under international law.

According to the Wall Street Journal, citing a person familiar with the matter, Witkoff has been working on a possible plan for a White House summit that would bring together real estate developers and other business leaders to jump-start reconstruction efforts in Gaza. The plan for such a summit is still in its early stages, and would be the first effort to answer some of the biggest outstanding questions, such as where construction will begin and how the debris will be cleared with more than 2 million Palestinians living in the territory.

The summit will include a public display, possibly with large cranes and other flashy pieces of equipment, the person said. Companies will likely be asked how to handle logistical, technical and explosive issues, including how to detect bombs, deal with underground tunnels used by Hamas fighters and deal with people who don’t want to leave the area.

From the stage at the conference, Witkoff repeated the idea that Gaza is not a suitable place to live.

"You have to see the destruction that's happening there today in Gaza. There are 30,000 unexploded shells everywhere there. The conditions are horrific, I don't know why anyone would want to live there today. It doesn't make sense to me," he said.

Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law in the past, has called the Gaza waterfront property “very valuable” and said the best approach would be to “get people out and then clean it up.” Kushner has previously said he will not be involved in any Trump administration policymaking. He has said he continues to advise the Trump team from his private sector position.

During their conversation, Witkoff said he decided to step away from his real estate development work and take on the role of Middle East envoy because Kushner convinced him to do so.

Trump and many of his closest allies, including Witkoff and Kushner, were real estate developers before entering politics, and many of the onstage conversations highlighted that experience.

For example, Witkoff said that in the ceasefire negotiations between Hamas and Israel, it seemed like a real estate deal made more difficult because neither side would sit at the same table to negotiate.

While the original ceasefire agreement included a three- to five-year plan to rebuild Gaza, Witkoff does not believe it is possible to achieve that within that time frame.

“This is not something that can be done in five years. It’s not really possible,” Witkoff said on stage at the conference. “You can’t build an apartment building in Manhattan in five years.”

As Witkoff said Thursday, President Donald Trump's plan for Gaza does not aim to displace Palestinians, and that the conversation about the future of Gaza is shifting to how to create a better future for the Palestinians.

It is noteworthy that in a press conference on Wednesday, Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said that Egypt is working on developing a framework for a Gaza reconstruction plan in partnership with Egyptian universities and consulting companies, and that the country has the capacity to rebuild the Gaza Strip within three years while allowing Gaza residents to remain there.

A report released this week by the United Nations, the European Union and the World Bank indicates that the costs of rebuilding Gaza will exceed $50 billion over the next decade.