The widespread rhetoric about rebuilding Gaza is being presented as a humanitarian necessity, but in reality, it is a political battleground.
The Satellite-based damage assessments indicate that more than 320,000 housing units have been damaged or destroyed. It indicates that entire neighborhoods lie flattened. Moreover, large sections of Gaza’s water networks, sewage systems, hospitals, schools, electricity infrastructure, and road corridors have been rendered inoperable.
Ultimately, this is not a matter of repairing buildings but of reconstructing an entire urban ecosystem. International estimates place the cost of Gaza’s recovery and reconstruction at more than $53 billion. Within this, roughly $20 billion is required in the first three years alone to stabilize essential services and basic infrastructure.
Additionally, some long-term projections push the figure closer to $70 billion when factoring in debris removal, economic revival, and structural reinforcement. However, money alone does not rebuild Gaza.
The Scale of Destruction: A Structural Collapse
The destruction in Gaza is not limited to visible rubble. Beneath collapsed buildings lies a deeper collapse. In this context, power grids, desalination plants, treatment facilities, telecommunications, and medical systems are completely obliterated.
According to the UN estimates, there are around 61 million to 68 million tons of rubble. Clearing debris itself presents a massive logistical challenge. Rubble removal requires heavy machinery, fuel, and unrestricted movement. It also involves the risk of unexploded ordnance embedded within residential ruins. Even this initial phase of recovery is dependent on import permissions and material access.
So, reconstruction cannot begin meaningfully if the supply chain is throttled.
The Price Tag: What $53 Billion Actually Means
The headline figure of $53 billion conceals the complexity of rebuilding:
- Housing reconstruction for hundreds of thousands of displaced families
- Water and sanitation restoration, including pipelines, pumping stations, and desalination facilities
- Electricity infrastructure repair, including transmission lines and fuel systems
- Healthcare and education system rebuilding
- Economic restart mechanisms, including support for small businesses and market reactivation
Without economic revival, reconstruction risks becoming cosmetic. A rebuilt apartment block without jobs, mobility, or functioning trade corridors is not recovery, but containment.
The Central Question: Who Controls the Gate?
Rebuilding Gaza hinges on one decisive factor – control over crossings, imports, and materials.
Israel retains effective control over Gaza’s airspace, maritime access, and land crossings. This control determines what enters the territory, in what quantity, and under what classification. Many materials essential for rebuilding, like cement, steel, electrical components, generators, and heavy equipment, can fall under “dual-use” restrictions, meaning they may be delayed, limited, or blocked entirely.
In past reconstruction cycles, limitations on cement imports alone dramatically slowed housing projects. A single bottleneck can stall thousands of housing units.
The result is a reconstruction process that is conditional, monitored, and dependent. Pledges of billions become symbolic if trucks cannot cross consistently and materials cannot flow freely.
The Board of Peace and Conditional Reconstruction
The recently announced “Board of Peace” and discussions surrounding Phase Two of post-war governance have introduced a new political architecture around reconstruction.
This framework reportedly includes:
- A multi-billion-dollar reconstruction fund
- Proposals for an international stabilization presence
- Governance restructuring discussions
- Demilitarization conditions tied to reconstruction access
But here lies the core controversy. If rebuilding is conditioned on political restructuring designed externally, reconstruction shifts from humanitarian necessity to strategic leverage. The linking of reconstruction funds to security and governance conditions effectively transforms infrastructure into bargaining currency.
For Palestinians in Gaza, this creates a troubling equation – recovery becomes contingent not simply on peace, but on compliance with externally framed political terms.
Who Will Pay?
Although the financing landscape is controversial and ambiguous, it is being reflected and layered as follows.
1. Gulf States
GCC countries possess the financial capacity to contribute substantially. Historically, they have played a role in Gaza reconstruction. Although they are ready to contribute, they want reassurance for Gaza’s peaceful future.
2. Western Governments
Western funding typically includes strict monitoring mechanisms and governance conditions. Aid is often routed through vetted channels to ensure oversight, which in practice can slow implementation.
3. Multilateral Institutions
Institutions such as development banks require transparency, security assurances, and administrative clarity before releasing large-scale funds. They do not operate in political vacuums because access and governance legitimacy are their prerequisites.
4. Private Sector and NGOs
While essential for humanitarian relief, NGOs cannot finance or execute state-scale rebuilding without stable import regimes and secure operational conditions.
Pledges may reach billions, but actual disbursement depends on political agreement.
Who Benefits from Reconstruction?
What Gaza needs this time is peace and respite from genocide. And reconstruction is not only about homes, but about the rehabilitation of the entire socio-economic spectrum.
Large regional construction firms may secure contracts. International contractors may enter under donor supervision. Local businesses may either be empowered or sidelined, depending on procurement structures.
If reconstruction flows primarily through externally approved channels, a new class of intermediaries can emerge. It will include permit holders, subcontractors, and import brokers. Restrictions often inflate prices and create scarcity premiums, distorting the local market.
There is also a major risk of “reconstruction dependency”. When rebuilding cycles follow destruction cycles without structural political resolution, the economy shifts from productive growth to aid management.
This pattern has repeated earlier in history, too, with destruction, donor conferences, partial rebuild, and renewed destruction. Without sovereignty and stability, reconstruction remains temporary.
The Human Dimension: Recovery Without Stability
More than infrastructure is at stake. Displacement remains widespread, while families who lost everything face prolonged uncertainty. Health systems remain strained, with limited access to specialized treatment and medical evacuations.
Rebuilding a hospital is one challenge, and ensuring consistent medicine supply chains is another.
Rebuilding housing is necessary, while guaranteeing that families will not face renewed displacement is equally critical.
Without legitimate guarantees against repeated devastation, reconstruction feels fragile.
Reconstruction as Leverage
The uncomfortable reality is that control over materials, crossings, and security architecture allows reconstruction to be shaped by external actors.
When the entry of basic materials depends on political alignment, rebuilding becomes permission-based. It ceases to be a right and becomes a managed process.
For Palestinians, the fear is not merely slow reconstruction. It is reconstruction that stabilizes dependency rather than restoring autonomy.
If border controls remain restrictive, trade corridors remain limited, and internal governance is externally dictated, Gaza risks being rebuilt structurally while remaining politically constrained.
The Larger Question
Rebuilding Gaza is not only about money, but about power. Who controls entry points determines pace, who sets political conditions determines structure, and who administers funds determines beneficiaries.
The international community can mobilize resources, regional powers can pledge funds, and the institutions can design oversight mechanisms.
But unless Palestinians possess meaningful control over their own reconstruction process, the rebuild risks becoming another chapter in a long cycle of externally managed survival. In a nutshell, buildings can be reconstructed with capital, but dignity and sovereignty require something more!
