Media coverage
El País (Spain) · 2025-04-18
Omar Shaban, a Gazan economist and founder of PalThink, says the war destroyed his home, killed two of his nephews, and displaced the rest of his family, while he now lives in Egypt after leaving Gaza shortly after 7 October 2023. He argues that Gaza has strong potential to prosper if the war ends and a peace process is revived, while sharply criticizing Europe’s silence and international inaction and calling for a two-state solution, an end to the occupation, and Hamas to leave government and merge armed wings into a national army.
Omar Shaban, a Gazan economist and founder of PalThink, says the war destroyed his home, killed two of his nephews, and displaced the rest of his family, while he now lives in Egypt after leaving Gaza shortly after 7 October 2023. He argues that Gaza has strong potential to prosper if the war ends…
What is striking about the economist Omar Shaban (Gaza, 62) is the composure with which he speaks about the year and a half of invasion that has claimed the lives of two of his nephews and left the rest of his family homeless. Director and founder of the Gaza-based think tank PalThink, Shaban crossed into Egypt two weeks after Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, where he currently lives after spending his whole life in Gaza. He would return without hesitation if he could, he says, because his land has enormous potential and, under the right conditions, could become a prosperous region. For that to happen, the international community must stop looking the other way and reactivate the peace process. Shaban, who traveled to Barcelona to take part as an expert in the annual War and Peace conference organized by CIDOB, offers a clear criticism: the world has turned its back on Gaza.
Question. How did you experience October 7?
Answer. I have lived through all the wars in Gaza over recent decades, but on October 7, at six in the morning, it was a Saturday, I realized that this time would not be like the previous ones. I decided to go to Egypt and I have not been able to return, because of the war, and because the Rafah border crossing has been closed since May 5 last year.
Q. Do you have relatives there?
A. My immediate family, my two sons, are fortunately outside. They emigrated to France years ago. But you know that Palestinians have large families. I have three sisters and five brothers in Gaza.
A. Two of my nephews have died. I try to stay in touch with my brothers every day, but it is not easy because there is no internet or electricity. They have all lost their homes; mine is destroyed too. Now I am the only one with an income and I help them because they cannot work and everything in Gaza is becoming more and more expensive.
Q. How do you describe what is happening there?
A. I do not need to describe it; almost everyone has described it as genocide. 50,000 Palestinians have been killed, a third of them children. There are 15,000 orphaned children, 85% of homes are destroyed. The statistics are there.
Q. What is Gaza like now?
A. There is no safe place. Abroad they see the news about Gaza, but I do not know whether they are aware that it is a really small place, barely 362 square kilometers inhabited by 2.2 million people, one of the most densely populated areas on earth. Gaza has not been free for a long time. Israel withdrew its army in 2005 but continued to control the air, the sea, and the land. All international bodies consider Gaza occupied territory. Therefore Israel has the responsibility to ensure the well-being of the population under occupation.
Q. You could have left Gaza and never did, until the war.
A. Gaza is wonderful. It could be a paradise. I have written a great deal about its potential. To begin with, it has a highly qualified population. The illiteracy rate is just over 1%; we are close to countries like Sweden in the number of university graduates. Many Gazans have left and become doctors, engineers all over the world. We have natural resources, good weather, we are at the center of the world. All the elements to make Gaza a prosperous and stable place.
Q. What did you feel when you learned of Donald Trump’s plan for your land?
A. He wants to build a riviera in Gaza, but without us. But why? We also want the Gaza riviera, but with us.
Q. How did Gaza reach this situation?
A. Decades ago there was peace without a peace agreement, because peace was made by people. I used to work with Israelis, I know Hebrew, I have Israeli friends, but when both nations became radicalized we became hostages between Israel’s very radical government and the stupid Palestinian leadership that did not make enough effort to develop this land.
Q. When possible, will you return?
A. Immediately, I want to help rebuild Gaza. Many people know me, I love my land and I have a responsibility toward those who have lost everything. If we have a state, if we have peace, many will return and bring their money, their experience, so that Palestine can become part of the first world.
Q. Can this be achieved with the current leaders?
A. There is a leadership crisis in Israel and Palestine. Is Israel a democratic country as they say when they have [the ultranationalist ministers] Smotrich, Ben-Gvir, Netanyahu? These people should be in court. I am not saying it; Israelis themselves are saying it. These leaders only believe in killing. They want to get rid of the Palestinians. This is not the way. We are not newcomers to Palestine. We have been there for the last five thousand years. Jesus is Palestinian. When the war ends Netanyahu will disappear, he will not survive.
Q. And the leaders on the other side?
A. This war will end one day and it will put an end to all the bad people on both sides. The Palestinian people believe that all Palestinian leaders, from A to Z, have been an enormous failure. They failed in the peace process, in development, in providing a good life for citizens.
Q. And the international community?
A. Of course, only we cannot be blamed. The United States must be blamed, the EU, which has done nothing. We are very disappointed with the EU. Yes, they support Palestine, the EU is the main funder of the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA, but we want the EU to be more active. Spain has been active. It is time to push for a peace conference that leads to a peace process.
Q. Do you see the two-state solution as possible with Trump in the White House?
R. We could live in peace and we support the two-state solution. It is the only possible one. Trump has said many things that are not realistic, and I do not take them seriously. They are businessmen. They see everything from the perspective of business, of money. We are a nation. We will not disappear. Palestine and the Palestinians are all over the world. Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin [the Israeli Nobel Peace Prize winners for the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians] believed that a Palestinian state would be good for Israel’s security. We do not want a large state; we are very small. We do not even want an army. We want a state that allows us to travel freely, prosper, develop, and for Palestinians abroad to come and invest.
P. Gazans will not leave voluntarily.
R. No, people will stay in their homes. But the situation is extremely bad. Since the war resumed. There is no water, no electricity, no food. Children have died for lack of food, and food was used as a weapon. The Israelis starved them. This goes against international law. Some would leave. It is normal to think about leaving if you live under this horrible nightmare every day for the last 15 months, 24 hours a day, in a very small place. Highlight this: 40 kilometers long by 8 wide. Some will leave, and the rest? The problem will still be there. The only solution is peace, even if it now seems difficult in this spiral of revenge and hatred and with these two leaderships.
R. Stop the war and call elections within two years. Of course we Palestinians have to do our work at home. We have to reintegrate all the political armies into one national army. We have a roadmap, but we need the war to end. Israel is going to elections next year and I am sure Netanyahu will no longer be there.
P. And Hamas’s role?
R. I have said it publicly before. Hamas has to leave the scene, withdraw from the government of Gaza, cease to be military, and integrate into a national army. Not as Hamas but as Palestinian national forces that abide by the presidency, the Palestinian Authority, and the Oslo Accords. But the problem is not only Hamas; we have other political factions with military wings such as Fatah. All of them must abide by an agreement that recognizes Israel. Israel needs to withdraw from Palestine; the occupation must end because these political and military factions use the occupation as justification for their existence. If we want to solve the problem at its root, the root is the occupation.
P. It has been many months of war. Do you fear that the world will lose interest in Gaza?
R. Attention is limited. The world has so many problems to worry about; now we are thinking about Russia, Iran, Ukraine...
P. So many images of horror... Have we become desensitized?
R. Look, I feel... We have lost faith in the international community. And this is very dangerous because we are neighbors, we believe in Europe, we believe in dialogue and in Euro-Mediterranean cooperation... And when I see that Europe does nothing... What kind of world are we living in? Europeans should feel ashamed for remaining silent, and some governments that blindly support Israel should feel ashamed. We are shocked and we have lost faith. And this has an impact on Palestinians, on Arabs, and on Muslims. That must also be taken into account. Gaza is important for the Muslim world and there is much support for Hamas and for Gaza throughout the world, because Gaza is a symbol of resistance. It is dangerous if the international community does not intervene. I still believe that Europe can do a great deal and knows that the government of Israel creates problems for the whole world.
P. You are witnessing the horror from the outside. How are you coping?
R. I am very sad. I have lost two nephews, many friends. Every day, every hour, when I open Facebook I see that someone has been killed. Yesterday [the day before the interview an Israeli bombardment caused at least 27 deaths in a school] was a nightmare. A school... I cannot even look. Netanyahu uses Hamas as justification, but [his campaign] is not against Hamas, it is against all Palestinians.
Arab-Israeli conflict
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