Media coverage
Naftemporiki (Greece) · 2025-10-19
A feature, translated from a German-language reportage, on visions of rebuilding Gaza. Omar Shaban, “63-year-old Gaza economist and founder of the Palthink think tank”, says Gaza “has everything to be a beautiful place, like Hong Kong, like Dubai”, puts reconstruction at about $70 billion over ten years and lists the opportunities: gas reserves, location, talent, beaches and two million tourists a year.
A feature, translated from a German-language reportage, on visions of rebuilding Gaza. Omar Shaban, “63-year-old Gaza economist and founder of the Palthink think tank”, says Gaza “has everything to be a beautiful place, like Hong Kong, like Dubai”, puts reconstruction at about $70 billion over ten…
## November 24, 1998 was a joyful day for Gaza. Thousands of Palestinians gathered to celebrate the first aircraft landing at Gaza International Airport.
A Palestine Airlines plane landed on the runway for the first time, and the crew waved flags from the windows as the crowd erupted in cheers.
Gaza’s new airport, like so many other projects in the Palestinian Territories built with money from Western donors, looked like an “Arab desert palace,” as people said at the time. It represented faith in a new country: modern, ambitious, and hopeful.
Some 27 years later, that dream is “buried” in the rubble, along with large parts of the Gaza Strip. With the massacre on October 7, Hamas not only wounded Israeli society, but also caused great damage to the people of Gaza. After two years of relentless war, Gaza is almost completely destroyed, and the ceasefire is already fragile after only a few days.
Given the unprecedented destruction caused by the Israeli army almost everywhere in the Strip, the celebratory images from Gaza International Airport 27 years ago seem not merely like another era, but like another world.
## At Elefsina at noon, the “Blue Carrier 2” – Inspections and unloading of the vehicles begin
Organizations such as Amnesty International accuse the Jewish state of war crimes, and the term genocide is being discussed before the International Court of Justice.
Israel, on the other hand, claims that the bombings were necessary because Hamas was systematically building military infrastructure — weapons depots, underground tunnels, rocket-launching platforms — within civilian infrastructure, for example beneath schools or hospitals.
One thing at least is indisputable: the scale of the destruction is enormous.
After the agreement on President Trump’s peace plan for the first phase of the process, however, discussions on reconstruction are also beginning.
One point of the agreement stipulates that, in addition to the aid that must immediately reach the Strip, the removal of debris and rubble must also begin immediately. According to the United Nations, 53 million tons of rubble must be removed, and the level of destruction is staggering: 94% of hospitals and 90% of apartments have been destroyed. This is equivalent to seven Great Pyramids of Khufu combined. In addition, 86% of farmland is no longer cultivable, while 77% of schools and 65% of roads have been destroyed.
Estimates indicate that it will take about 21 years to remove all the rubble, at a cost of $1.2 billion.
## The cost of reconstruction
But how much money will be needed to rebuild buildings and infrastructure in Gaza? According to a World Bank estimate from February 2025, the amount required will be $53 billion. This represents three times Palestine’s GDP.
Based on the growth trend recorded between 2007 and 2022, it will take 350 years to recover the income lost in Gaza during the war with Israel. Trump has announced a development plan and lower tariffs for investors, but reconstruction will undoubtedly be a difficult task.
Omar Shaban, a 63-year-old economist from Gaza and founder of the think tank PalThink, does not seem discouraged. “This is simply war,” he says calmly. And immediately he begins to speak about the future: “It is incredibly disappointing for me to see the condition Gaza is in. Because it has everything needed to be a beautiful place — like Hong Kong, like Dubai.”
Aid organizations such as Médecins Sans Frontières warn that countless unexploded bombs lie among the rubble, and their removal will likely take years. Experts such as Omar Shaban and others estimate the cost of reconstruction at $70 billion. The estimated timeline: ten years.
## Who will rebuild Gaza
But the really big questions remain unanswered. Who will rebuild Gaza? With what money? Who will govern it? What will become of Hamas? And what kind of Gaza will this be, the one that could one day emerge from the rubble of war and human suffering?
There are many ideas for funding. According to the Washington Post, Trump and his team are planning GITA — a “BIG Fund” (Gaza Reconstruction, Economic Acceleration and Transformation), with massive public investments to be followed by private ones. The EU has pledged the creation of a “Donor Group for Palestine.” Germany wants to host an international donor conference with Egypt. Other plans provide, in particular, that the wealthy Gulf states will open their coffers.
Concrete commitments, however, are still lacking. Many still doubt whether Trump’s plan can really bring stability, let alone lasting peace.
“The agreement has many gaps,” says Ksenia Svetlova, a Middle East expert at Israel’s Reichman University in Herzliya. “A stable and credible authority must be established in Gaza, so that investors are willing to get involved. I do not think anyone will give even a cent until there is tangible progress on the ground.”
Ghaith al-Omari, a former adviser to the Palestinian negotiating delegation, who now conducts research at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, an American think tank, raises similar concerns. “Without the disarmament of Hamas, there will be no reconstruction,” he says. “And time is critical — the longer this drags on without a clear prospect, the more Hamas may entrench itself.”
## Education and the “free market”
Dan Ben-David of Tel Aviv University, one of Israel’s leading economists and founder and president of the Shoresh Institution for Socioeconomic Research, when asked about the fate of Gaza, does not speak about development sectors, costs, or investments. He speaks about schools.
“What worries me is that none of those who want to invest in Gaza talks about education. They talk about construction projects, but not about shaping a new mindset. You have to give people the ability to achieve things on their own. If the children in Gaza are well educated, they will not only receive the tools they need for a modern economy, but they will also learn to exercise constructive criticism of the leadership.”
Al-Omari also supports educational reforms in order to entrench the idea of the “free market.” “The current educational system, which is based on the role of the victim, must be replaced by one oriented toward the future. This is necessary to stop the continuation of the conflict—and also as a message to Israel,” he explains. In addition, the Palestinian educational system lacks an entrepreneurial spirit: it is based on passive memorization, without critical thinking. “This creates a society that is hardly prepared for economic development.”
Which path Gaza will now follow will likely also depend on which states will help the bombed coastal strip. Most see the funding coming from the Gulf monarchies, which will turn Gaza into an Arab construction site.
Danny Orbach, a military historian at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, however, sees maximum involvement from the United Arab Emirates and minimal involvement from Qatar and Turkey. These two countries supported Hamas in Gaza for many years. Many in Israel therefore fear their influence.
The United Arab Emirates, on the other hand, which established diplomatic relations with Israel in 2020 under the Abraham Accords, is regarded as a moderate country that acts realistically.
The Emirates and Saudi Arabia represent Arab success stories, Al-Omari agrees. “They could serve as a model for Gaza,” especially with regard to economic development.
When Trump released an AI-generated video clip in the spring depicting the Gaza Strip as a flashy, nouveau-riche blend of Dubai, Tel Aviv, and Barcelona, it was met with ridicule. However, some serious observers take Trump’s vision of Gaza as the “Riviera of the Middle East” seriously.
“The opportunities are enormous,” believes Omar Shaban, the Palestinian economist. Gaza has so much that it could benefit from: a strategic location between Asia and Africa, natural gas reserves, talented people, beautiful beaches. Gaza could welcome two million tourists every year, he adds.
Nevertheless, a dark shadow hangs over every rosy vision for Gaza’s future. As long as the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians continues to smolder beneath the ashes of the war’s ruins and no Palestinian state is created, a spark is enough to reignite the fighting and bring back the violence.
Even the most ambitious reconstruction plans will last only until the next eruption.
Text © Naftemporiki (Greece) — archived here with attribution to the source. — Machine translation for archival reference. — Original source