Reconstruction of Gaza - realistic?

[mids2019]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj41y42qxq8o

I think the problem with the below is the mammoth coast and the problem of who pays. To build a city of the size of Birmingham from scratch including public infrastructure to a sufficient standard using non slave Labour is going to be astronomical. Who pays? All the Arab states (although some with concentrated extreme wealth) have their own domestic pressures without stumping up hundreds of billions to produce a new sixth state. There could be international loans but that would bring into question Gazan public debt and how loans could be repaid.

There is also the thorny question about how Gazans go about establishing legal ownership of land or whether they need to buy it again. It seems like a conveyincing nightmare. One solution would be to build identical properties and allocate them the to the populace as a whole but would Gazans want this form of communism in terms of property? If you do have a housing market how do establish a realistic economy to support it?

International aid is extremely stressed and certainly as a UK tax payer I would hope we wouldn't get to involved and as Gazan reconstruction is talked about we should be conscious of the levels of poverty in other regions of the world.

I don't endorse your world view that literally everything is Israel's fault. Hamas are funded primarily by Qatar, Iran and Turkey.

Though Israel has allowed Qatar to give hundreds of millions of dollars in aid through Hamas, this money was not intended by Israel to be used for the purpose it was used re building the tunnel network etc.

From NBC news in October 2023:

The unemployment rate in Gaza is 47% and more than 80% of its population lives in poverty, according to the United Nations. Hamas, however, has funded an armed force of thousands equipped with rockets and drones and built a vast web of tunnels under Gaza. Estimates of its annual military budget range from $100 million to $350 million, according to Israeli and Palestinian sources.

Since coming to power in the Gaza Strip 17 years ago, Hamas has filled its coffers with hundreds of millions in international aid, overt and covert injections of cash from Iran and other ideological partners, as well as cryptocurrency, taxes, extortion and smuggling, according to current and former U.S. officials and regional experts.

Much of the money is public and legal, including large sums of financial aid from Qatar via the United Nations, an arrangement encouraged and approved by Israel. The Qatari aid covers the salaries of civil servants, buys fuel for the power grid and provides cash to needy families.

Some of it is less than legal, according to experts. In addition to levying taxes on Gaza’s businesses and residents, Hamas imposes unofficial fees on smuggled goods and other activity, for a combined income of up to $450 million per year. Hamas also has real estate and other investments around the globe, despite international restrictions, and uses cryptocurrency to mask some of its transactions.

Some of it may be fully illegal. A small portion of its budget seems to come from smuggling in South America, including drug smuggling.

www.nbcnews.com/news/world/gaza-plagued-poverty-hamas-no-shortage-cash-come-rcna121099

Let me tell you a story. Oct 7th was a Saturday and on the following Wednesday, I went to our usual pub quiz which we do most weeks. Someone asked me, knowing I follow Middle East affairs, what I thought would happen following the atrocities. I told them then that in ten to twenty years, Netanyahu would be sitting in a five star resort in Gaza with some of the billionaire so called leaders of Hamas, sipping champagne and toasting the billions they've made in property development. I believed it then and I still have no reason not to believe it now.

And the Palestinians would be gone.

Equally, polls suggest that the majority of the population in Gaza still support Hamas and their 7/10 attack and don't want them disarmed... does that make the whole of Gaza evil? I don't think so and neither do you probably. Survey results from October 2025:

Palestinian opinion is polarized: the Trump Plan is widely known but support is split, with Gazans more favorable than West Bankers. Majorities back Hamas’s response yet reject disarming Hamas; most doubt the plan will end the war or deliver statehood. A leadership crisis endures—dissatisfaction with Abbas and the PA, Marwan Barghouti leading, and Hamas outpolling Fatah. Since Oct 7, support for the attack persists even as expectations of Hamas victory wane. Gazans are more open to negotiated arrangements;` West Bankers favor armed struggle. Across both, skepticism of external plans coexists with demands for elections and self-defense

www.pcpsr.org/en/node/1000

Well unless you can see into the future there’s no particular reason to believe your vision of the future but it does suggest your first thoughts were not for the Israelis who has just been attacked, kidnapped, raped or murdered by terrorists.

There is very little chance of Gaza being reconstructed. Not least because Israel is still demolishing it. Only now they are using explosives and bulldozers rather than air strikes.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0mxylxw48yo

Yes and they are still killing civilians too.

Has the issue of what to do with Hamas been resolved?

Of course it will be reconstructed at some point. But the tunnels that Hamas hide in need to be destroyed first & of course Hamas need to disarm to move towards phase two.

I don’t think so.

I’m not sure how it will be. No one will want to be around them and take the risk.

They do have some supporters 🤷🏼‍♀️

Do you mean on SM or in reality?

I think people post stuff but no one would want them close by.

Unless I’m missing some actual takers

I was thinking of Iran as an example of a country that might take Hamas seeing as they support them.

Studies suggest that Hamas did not spend Aid money (except probably from Qatar) on arms - they spent it on a functioning education and health system, universities etc. Arms and military infrastructure was paid for from their financial empire, which included huge investments in bitcoin etc. There has still been very limited efforts Internationally to track down and break up this networks of investments - it has been suggested in many circles that this may have been far more effective than bombing civilians.

Gazans go about establishing legal ownership of land or whether they need to buy it again.

My god, let’s hope that doesn’t happen! Imagine being bombed out of your home then having to pay to get it back!

Fair point. Although they’ve been silent on this I assume

This is wxactly why speculation about rebuilding feels so inappropriate. The destruction is ongoing.

Israel has obliterated Gaza and committed a genocide on its people. Are you trying to say that the Palestinians asked for that? That this is an ‘obvious’ consequence of ‘picking a fight’ with a bully?

A more realistic starting point for Israel to begin would be the West Bank and East Jerusalem. It should immediately evacuate all of its illegal settlers and pay reparation to the Palestinians for damages caused by the occupation, as advised by the ICC.

Is that going to happen?

I agree that Gaza has been obliterated by the IDF.

I’m not saying that Palestinian civilians asked for that but Hamas did ask for war and they got it. Once you start a war you can’t control how violently the other side will react which is why no one sane starts wars with sides they know to be so much stronger militarily. Maybe Hamas thought like-minded countries would help them to destroy the IDF, but they didn’t. Then they had the option to surrender which they chose not to take. So that’s two ways in which Hamas chose the obliteration of Gaza.

Re the West Bank I don’t agree with illegal settlers so I would like to see Israel evacuate them but I think we can agree that is unlikely to happen.

Logical me says that let's terrorists off. They do their thing and renew a conflict then others pay.

How about seizing the huge wealth stolen by Hamas leaders and taken to Qatar amongst other countries and use it for the better of Gazans in Gaza.

Agree. So many people will say they don’t support Hamas & yet they don’t seem to hold them at all accountable for their actions.

Even financially it’s like Hamas doesn’t exist when people are considering the question of who should pay to rebuild Gaza.

Indeed. There is colossal weath in the middle east yet small appetite to help their Muslim neighbour.

Indeed I wish Hamas wouldn't slaughter Palestinians under the comment of 'they're collaborators etc'. Hamas seem to feel that is a free pass to slaughter fellow Palestinians and their supporters don't question it.