Rebuilding Gaza: considerations for a liveable future

Omar Shaban

Introduction

The Israeli assault on Gaza has been raging for more than seven months, with no sign of its end. The genocide has undoubtedly had global repercussions — such as the Houthi mobilisation in the Red Sea, the rising tension between Israel and Iran, and the mass student mobilisation in the United States and Europe. Yet the growth of global attention to Palestine compared with past generations has come only at a terrible price. Even the great numbers of martyrs (now estimated at more than 35,000), of the displaced, and of destroyed homes cannot do justice to the scale of destruction the Gaza Strip has endured since October 2023.

It is nonetheless essential that Palestinians lead the conversation about what will follow the genocide Israel has committed, because withdrawing from these discussions means placing our collective future in the hands of those who have sought for decades to erase us. To that end, this commentary offers an opening for Palestinian dialogue on what might follow a ceasefire: it first takes up the “day after” discourse of non-Palestinians, then describes how today's reconstruction differs from those that came before it, and closes by presenting a possible approach for beginning to rebuild the Strip.   

The exclusion of Palestinians from the “day after” discourse 

Since Israel began its genocide in Gaza, an enormous number of discussions, briefings, and think pieces have advanced various proposals for what the day after the assault might look like. At best, the vast majority of these discussions offered some token Palestinian participation. Most, however, proceeded without involving Palestinians at all.

For example, in an opinion piece published by the Foreign Policy Research Institute, Leon Hadar called on the United States to reconsider Palestinian statehood as a long-term goal rather than an immediate policy proposal, suggesting instead that deploying NATO forces in the Gaza Strip, or continuing the Israeli military occupation, remains a logical near-term option. In another case, a joint project of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America and the Vandenberg Coalition called for creating an International Fund for the Relief and Reconstruction of Gaza. In its proposal, the project's eight-member committee described the fund as a “mega-NGO” run by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates. Chatham House likewise issued an article titled “the day after”, written by Sanam Vakil and Neil Quilliam, in which they appealed to the Gulf states to take the initiative with a larger role in planning for the post-ceasefire phase and supporting the efforts toward Palestinian statehood.

More striking still, none of these proposals centred Palestinian voices — neither as authors nor as sources of expertise. This exclusionary analysis, which prefers non-Palestinian visions over Palestinian expertise and lived experience, is nothing strange; it is part of a long-standing tendency to prevent Palestinian self-government and self-determination in the context of policy planning. 

This abundance of “day after” analysis comes at a time when it grows clearer every day that the Israeli regime launched its assault on Gaza only to eliminate Hamas, without any plan for what would follow. The past few months in particular show that even this objective is in constant flux for Israel, as its army continues committing indiscriminate massacres and wide-scale destruction in the Gaza Strip.

While Netanyahu rules out the possibility of the Palestinian Authority governing Gaza should a ceasefire be reached, Biden advocates that very option. In a step to recover some legitimacy with global partners, PA President Mahmoud Abbas recently formed a new technocratic government. Yet it remains unknown how Israeli policymakers will receive the “renewed” Palestinian Authority — or how it will be welcomed by the Palestinian people, who have not gone to the ballot box since the elections of 2006. 

The obstacles to reconstruction

The Gaza Strip has already passed through the painful project of reconstruction on several occasions, and many aspects of the previous initiatives met resounding failure. But the current context poses greater challenges than ever before. The following are a few of the many considerations that must be weighed when speaking of what rebuilding Gaza will require:

• In the wake of the Israeli attack of 2014, about 96,000 homes were damaged or destroyed, and the expected reconstruction cost was between $4 and $6 billion over 20 years. By contrast, Israel destroyed more than 335,000 housing units — over 60% of all homes in Gaza — wholly or partially between October 2023 and January 2024. As of February 2024, reconstruction cost estimates stood at about $20 billion.
• In 2014, nearly 600,000 Palestinians took refuge in UNRWA schools. Most were able to return to their homes within weeks of the ceasefire, and schooling was delayed by a month or two. Today the damage is far greater: more than half of the Palestinians in Gaza no longer have homes to return to, more than 300 schools have been destroyed, and most children are likely to fall at least a year behind in their studies.
• Clearing the greater part of the estimated two million tonnes of rubble from Gaza took 18 months after the 2014 assault. According to Pehr Lodhammar, former head of the UN Mine Action Service in Iraq, the current genocide has left more than 37 million tonnes of rubble and debris. How long will it take to remove this much destruction? Lodhammar estimates the time required at 14 years using 100 trucks. Who will provide the resources and equipment needed to do it? To whom will they be given? And what of the unexploded weapons buried within it? These are only a few of the many questions that must be answered urgently, because Palestinians cannot safely return to their land until the remnants are cleared.
• More than 70% of Gaza's hospitals have been completely destroyed; the ten remaining hospitals operate only partially. Rebuilding and re-equipping Gaza's medical facilities is among the most pressing needs — alongside rebuilding the water and sanitation networks and the essential roads, all indispensable to ensuring people can return.
• Finally, we must not forget the agricultural sector. A large part of the land once used for food production has been destroyed or repurposed to shelter those displaced from other areas of the Gaza Strip, as happened in the village of al-Mawasi and other villages in the Khan Younis governorate. According to a report the Food and Agriculture Organization issued in February 2024, nearly half of Gaza's farmland has been damaged. As a result, food insecurity is likely to remain a very consequential problem in the years ahead.

The path toward agency and hope

For there to be a possible path toward the resumption of life in Gaza and toward return, a number of these pressing needs must be met simultaneously and from the outset. 

One approach to reconstruction is to focus on one cluster of neighbourhoods at a time. If we can bring together the resources needed to rebuild ten neighbourhoods, for example, it would be possible to make major progress on them within a few months. This approach could involve designating two neighbourhoods in each of the five governorates — one city neighbourhood and one refugee camp in each — to focus on at the start. Ten to twenty trucks and the other necessary equipment could be assigned to each of these neighbourhoods to clear the rubble and begin reconstruction.

Beyond securing the most important requirements of livelihood in these neighbourhoods — such as infrastructure, health, and food — the productive and education sectors must also be given priority. Rebuilding Gaza's productive sector, such as its agricultural and export capacities, will ensure Gaza exits the cycle of dependence on humanitarian aid as quickly as possible. Rapid investment in rebuilding schools and universities is likewise of the utmost importance for reviving Palestinian civil society and preserving Palestinian knowledge and memory. 

It is essential that the residents of these communities take part in every stage of this process — in decision-making and in implementation alike — for doing so will help entrench Palestinian ownership and guarantee employment for those most harmed by the genocide. Spaces of meaningful participation — whether through strategic leadership, employment, or volunteering — will help entrench the agency of the Palestinians of Gaza.

Following this approach, Palestinians will see an example of what the future could look like for the rest of the Gaza Strip — and that can plant some hope in the community. Hope in such times carries no small value, after so many Palestinians have lost everything. Through a strategy of rebuilding neighbourhoods cluster by cluster, Gaza's residents can envision a possible future for the entire Strip. Attempting to restore the basic needs of the whole Strip at once, by contrast, would take so long before Gazans could recover some semblance of normal life that the goal might seem so distant that collective hope could easily fade. 

Planting a sense of hope will also help hasten the return of those who fled Gaza: tens of thousands of Palestinians have left since October 2023, and many remain in Egypt. While some may choose to stay outside Gaza, many long to return to their homeland as soon as possible. For them to be able to return — and to dissuade others from mass emigration — the possibilities of a sustainable future must begin to be realised. 

Who, then, will lead this process? One solution is to form a Palestinian national reconstruction committee comprising experts from the private sector and civil society, and representatives from across the political spectrum. Among the principal reasons the previous Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism, devised after the 2014 assault, failed was its lack of Palestinian ownership and its prioritising of the interests of third-state actors as well as Israel. An independent Palestinian steering committee is therefore an essential condition for avoiding a repetition of past mistakes.

The Gaza Strip will undoubtedly still need the international community's support for reconstruction whatever approach is followed. But what matters most is that ownership of the reconstruction process rest in Palestinian hands. International support is not the same as international control. Palestinians possess the skills and expertise required; what we lack at this moment are the funds, the equipment, the access, and the protection necessary to set this process in motion. Palestinians in the diaspora should also take part in this process, for many hold the essential technical knowledge and the resources needed for mobilisation and investment in Gaza's future.

Naturally the question remains: who will fund reconstruction? It is worth noting that many of the funding pledges for the Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism announced at the Cairo conference of 2014 have never been spent. Even more than two years after the brutal Israeli assault, the pledgers were still behind on nearly half the funds they had promised. The vast majority of the unfulfilled pledges — some 90% — came from the Gulf region. As a result, vital infrastructure was never rebuilt. Moreover, the international community's pessimism has grown regarding the usefulness of its investments when so many of the projects it funds are repeatedly destroyed by Israeli bombardment. This in no way absolves third states of their obligation to support reconstruction in Gaza; it rather underscores the need for this process to be paired with coordinated efforts toward a political solution that honours Palestinians' return and their right to self-determination and protects them from the possibility of future genocide. 

Beyond Gaza's physical reconstruction, renewed efforts must also be made to rebuild the Palestinian political system. Although Gaza's residents cannot take part in the political process at this present moment, a road map is needed that sets out the future political directions and prescribes steps to end the political division, beginning with a promise to hold Palestinian elections within a defined period. It is clear to the Palestinians of Gaza that the political division between Fatah and Hamas since 2007 has gravely harmed the broader struggle for liberation. Political reconciliation must be accomplished to secure a lasting future for Palestinians and to bring wider regional stability. And while the Palestinian Authority urgently needs to rebuild itself, the current political division cannot continue: the residents of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, must unite under a single leadership.