A controversial Israeli minister has said Gaza could be a “real estate bonanza” – and that a business plan for redeveloping it had been sent to the US president.

Bezalel Smotrich, the country’s far-right finance chief, told a Tel Aviv conference he had “started negotiations” with the US on how to share the proceeds of any future deal.

The comments echo controversial remarks by Donald Trump in February, when he said America would take over Gaza and redevelop it into the “riviera of the Middle East” – with its population going to “various domains”.

He later shared a AI-generated video showing it as a Dubai-style city, featuring exotic beaches, skyscrapers, luxury yachts and people partying.

Mr Smotrich told the urban regeneration event “there’s a business plan set by the most professional people there is and is on President Trump’s table and how this thing turns into a real estate bonanza. I’m not kidding; it pays off”.

The minister, who is sanctioned by countries including the UK, Canada and Australia, claimed discussions were already under way on how cash from redeveloping Gaza’s shattered landscape would be allocated.

Mr Smotrich said Israel had “paid a lot of money for this war, so we need to divide how we make a percentage on the land marketing later in Gaza”.

He added: “We’ve done the demolition phase, which is always the first phase of urban renewal. Now we need to build; it’s much cheaper.”

Any effort to forcibly displace Gaza’s population for a building project would almost certainly breach the Geneva Convention and cause international outrage – as Mr Trump found when he mooted his plan earlier this year.

Israel’s offensive in Gaza ratcheted up this week as it launched a major ground offensive to seize all of Gaza City and destroy Hamas.

Thousands are heading south with whatever they can in an effort to avoid being killed in the fighting.

The operation has prompted widespread condemnation, with UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper calling it “utterly reckless and appalling”.

Ms Cooper – who helped greet the pro-Israel President Trump when he landed in Britain on Tuesday – said it would “only bring more bloodshed, kill more innocent civilians & endanger the remaining hostages”.

With no sign of an imminent ceasefire in Gaza and the situation increasingly dire, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is expected to shortly announce Britain’s recognition of a Palestinian state.

It is believed he could make the declaration at the weekend to avoid causing division on the issue while President Trump is in the country.

The two leaders are holding talks today at Chequers, with the prime minister under pressure to urge Mr Trump to use his influence over Israel to rein in its new offensive.

The prime minister said in July that recognition would come unless Israel met certain conditions, including taking “substantive steps” to end the war and commit to long-term peace.

France, Canada and Australia are also set to recognise a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly next month, while Ireland, Spain and Norway all took the step last year.

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Israel says the recognition of a Palestinian state is unacceptable, rewards Hamas, and makes it harder to create the conditions needed to free the remaining hostages.

More than 65,000 people in Gaza have now been killed in the war, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. The figure does not specify the number of Hamas members killed.

At least 63 people were killed on Wednesday, with most of the casualties in Gaza City, local health authorities said.

The Hamas terror attack on Israel in October 2023 saw around 1,200 people killed and 251 people taken hostage. Forty-eight remain in Gaza, but fewer then half are thought to still be alive.

A report this week from a UN commission said Israel was committing genocide in Gaza – a claim the country vehemently denies as “distorted and false”.

Sky News analysis shows thousands of families remain in crowded tent camps in Gaza City, with the UN estimating last week that a million people remain there.

Israel, however, believes 40% of the population has already fled south and on Wednesday opened a new evacuation route for 48 hours.

Ukraine’s defence of the crucial city of Pokrovsk, which has held out for more than a year despite fierce Russian assaults, could be coming to an end as invading forces squeeze the resistance out.

Elsewhere, Ukraine’s troops are facing attacks along the frontline, with Moscow reportedly using a pipeline to move personnel in the northeast near Kupyansk as it seeks to create even more pressure on Kyiv’s stretched resources.

It comes after Volodymyr Zelenskyy used an exclusive interview with Sky News to call on Donald Trump to take a “clear position” on a sanctions package for Russia and security guarantees for Ukraine.

Sky News has a look at what has been happening at some key parts of the frontline.

‘Kill zone’ as around Pokrovsk

Ukrainian forces have been engaged in a bitter struggle to hold the key logistics hub of Pokrovsk for more than a year, with Russian troops at times attempting to encircle the defenders there.

The situation there is worsening, says Dr Marina Miron, an expert at the defence studies department at King’s College London.

She cited reports that Russian forces are controlling all supply routes and have “created a kill zone” using drones, making it very difficult for Ukraine to resupply its troops there.

A road and rail node, Pokrovsk had a pre-war population of around 60,000 people. It’s viewed by Russia as “the gateway to Donetsk”.

Capturing it would severely hamper Ukrainian supply lines and endanger crucial cities like Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.

“It will take time because what the Russians are trying to do essentially is to squeeze the Ukrainians out,” Dr Miron told Sky News.

“They don’t want to storm the city as it’s too difficult and too manpower intensive – assuming a lot of losses.” Instead, they are trying to surround it completely, she added.

This reflects a “changed approach”, Dr Miron says, with the Russian military appearing to favour slower encirclement operations rather than the high-casualty assault waves with which places like Bakhmut were captured.

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Battles in the northeast

Meanwhile, Russian forces have advanced near Kupyansk in northeast Ukraine, not far from the fortress city of Kharkiv, the Institute for the Study of War thinktank reported on Monday.

Like other targets along the Ukrainian frontline, Kupyansk is a key transport and logistics hub, being the location at which several major rail lines converge.

“It seems like they are pretty close,” Dr Miron said, discussing the positions of Russian forces around Kupyansk.

Earlier this week, Ukraine’s military said Russia had moved personnel to the area via a pipeline, but said the exit from the pipe is under control of Ukrainian defenders.

“A counter-sabotage operation is underway in the city, and search and strike operations are underway around the city,” the Kyiv’s General Staff said on Telegram on Saturday.

Kupyansk, which was recaptured by Ukrainian troops in their counteroffensive in autumn 2022, has been largely destroyed in the course of the war and continues to face attacks.

Dr Miron said it’s likely that the push towards Kupyansk is part of an effort by Moscow to retake some of those lost territories, or perhaps an effort to seize land that it can then use as a bargaining chip in any future negotiations.

The suspect in the Madeleine McCann case celebrated his release from prison with a fast-food breakfast of chicken nuggets and a burger.

Christian B, 49, was smuggled from a jail near Hanover, hidden in the back of his lawyer’s car and managed to avoid being filmed or pictured by scores of camera operators who had been waiting for several days.

But a photographer caught up with him as he stopped briefly at a McDonald’s restaurant.

Read more: Madeleine McCann suspect released after serving rape sentence

Christian B, who cannot be fully identified under German privacy laws, stood outside and smoked a cigarette before eating his food.

Dressed in a lilac shirt, beige trousers and trainers, he ordered chicken nuggets with sweet-and-sour sauce, a burger and a hot drink.

He wore sunglasses, but they did little to disguise the distinctive features that have appeared on TV and on the front of newspapers around the world.

After 15 minutes, he left the restaurant as police blocked the street to allow him to leave freely.

He was driven off again in the black Audi saloon in which his lawyer Friedrich Fulscher had collected him an hour earlier from Sehnde prison.

It’s not known where Christian B was headed after completing an unrelated sentence for the rape of an elderly woman, or who will help him adjust to his new life of freedom.

As part of his release conditions, he’s been fitted with an electronic ankle tag, has had to surrender his passport and register his permanent address with probation officers.

Another of his lawyers, Philipp Marquort, said: “This is an attempt by the public prosecutor’s office to keep him in a kind of pre-trial detention where they would have access to him at any time. We will not accept that.”

German prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters, who leads the Madeleine investigation, believes Christian B abducted and murdered the three-year-old during a family holiday in Portugal in 2007.

The suspect, who has convictions for child sex abuse, theft, drug trafficking and forgery, denies any involvement.

Explainer: The chequered history of Christian B

Madeleine vanished from her bed in a rented apartment as her parents and their friends dined nearby at the hotel complex in Praia da Luz.

Mr Wolters told Sky News he had “almost” enough evidence to charge the suspect, but could not justify arresting him and stopping him from being freed.

He said: “He is dangerous, a psychopath, and we hope he does not commit more crimes, but it is likely he will.”

He said he hadn’t ruled out the chance of charging Christian B: “At the moment, we still have lines of investigation we are pursuing, and we hope we may gain more evidence or indications.

“If that happens, our situation would of course improve, and we would prefer to go to court with that stronger position.”

Christian B, who flitted between Germany and Portugal, has served seven years for the rape of a 72-year-old American woman in Praia da Luz – two years before Madeleine vanished.

He is expected to appear in a German court next month to face a charge of using insulting behaviour towards a female prison warder. A conviction could put him back in jail.

He also faces a possible retrial after the prosecutor’s appeal against his acquittal last year on unrelated rape and child sex allegations.

Scotland Yard detectives, who failed to charge anyone in their own investigation, revealed this week they had asked Christian B to answer their questions, but he refused, as he has with their German and Portuguese colleagues.

His lawyers dismissed it as an illegal request because investigators had shared none of the prosecution files with him.

According to the prosecutor, the evidence against Christian B in the Madeleine case is circumstantial; his mobile phone was nearby her apartment at the time she vanished, he was a convicted child sex abuser, he had allegedly confessed to a friend, and he had re-registered his car the day after.

There is no forensic evidence to link the suspect to the abduction – and after 18 years, the chances of finding it must be remote.

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German criminal profiler Mark T Hofmann told Sky News: “I’m a big believer in second chances, but I’m not that much of a big believer in tenth chances.

“So if you commit a crime, and you do it again and again and again and again, then you need to ask yourself like, why should we believe that he will stop now?

“I wish, and I hope that also he realises that he can maybe now live a different life anonymously in some place, and hopefully stop committing crimes.”

Madeleine’s parents Kate and Gerry McCann, from Leicestershire, cling to the hope their daughter might still be found alive, in the absence of any evidence they are aware of to show she is dead.