Omar Shaban's economic agenda for Gaza: lift the blockade and reopen trade, restore water and electricity with solar power, support the private sector, use reconstruction to create local jobs, and invest in the port, gas and export industries — so that Gaza stops depending on handouts.
Omar Shaban's economic agenda for Gaza: lift the blockade, restore power and water, back the private sector and local jobs, reopen trade.
Gaza's once export-oriented economy was hollowed out by the blockade imposed in 2007, the Palestinian division and repeated wars, leaving its population impoverished and dependent on aid (SWP, 2017). The 2023–2025 war deepened the collapse: the final EU–UN–World Bank assessment records an 84% contraction of Gaza's economy. Shaban argues that Gaza still has assets — its location between Asia and Europe, an entrepreneurial and skilled workforce, offshore gas, and a diaspora ready to invest — but that they can be used only if Gaza is reopened to trade and its people regain access to their land.
Relief alone cannot revive Gaza. Years of relief programmes did not reduce poverty; what is needed are development interventions that create jobs and rebuild productive capacity — and none of it is sustainable without the free movement of people and goods.
Recommendations
Lift the blockade: allow the movement of people and reopen Gaza for trade, including exports.
Repair water and electricity networks and the power lines that feed Gaza, and support green, self-sufficient energy such as solar.
Support the private sector, which creates jobs, and recruit local companies, factories and materials in reconstruction wherever possible.
Launch labour-intensive programmes in housing, infrastructure, agriculture, fishing and rubble clearance to create immediate jobs.
Shift part of international aid from relief to development through a diversified multi-year plan: building schools, paving roads, rehabilitating camp housing and the coastline (he illustrates $30 million a month as roughly 20–25 schools or 20–25 km of road).
Reconstruct a Gaza seaport, explore the gas fields and jump-start the export industry.
Mobilise the deposits accumulated in Palestinian banks (about $8 billion in 2014) through mortgage schemes for families who lost their homes, and use concessions, strategic partnerships and joint ventures for energy, the port and the airport.
Restore Palestinians' access to their land, including agricultural areas, and allow reconstruction where people actually lived.
Expected outcomes
Gaza turned “into a haven of stability and prosperity rather than being aid-dependent and a threat to its neighbours.”
A rebuilt productive sector — agriculture and export capabilities — that lets Gaza break out of the cycle of humanitarian dependency as swiftly as possible.
A large share of spending reaching workers and engineers, reviving construction and the dozens of activities linked to it.
Well-planned development interventions that encourage more Western governments and international institutions to support them.