The ceasefire that began in January opened an operational window for relief and early recovery, but it also exposed a stark political gap. Governments and international agencies moved quickly to scale up humanitarian deliveries, yet the same actors stopped short of making large, unconditional commitments to rebuild Gaza until credible security and governance arrangements are in place.
Operational reality explains part of the reluctance. The United Nations and partners recorded an immediate surge of aid flows once the pause in fighting took hold, while warning that debris, unexploded ordnance, and restricted access for heavy machinery will prevent large scale clearance and reconstruction until the security environment is stabilised. Humanitarian agencies have stressed that delivering food and medicine is only the first step. Removing millions of tonnes of rubble, restoring water and power networks, and rehabilitating hospitals require predictable, protected supply corridors and sustained movement of equipment that cannot be guaranteed under the current, fragile arrangements.
On the political side, the Palestinian Authority and several regional partners have outlined planning frameworks for post-war recovery, including proposals for a donor-managed trust and coordination with financial institutions. Those planning efforts demonstrate how reconstruction is being treated as a long term, institutional project rather than a series of emergency deliveries. But the planning documents and ministerial statements published to date do not close the clearest political question: who will provide the verifiable security guarantees that donors and international financial institutions say they need before they commit large sums or long term financing. That gap has left pledges oriented toward short term relief and planning support rather than the multi year capital commitments that reconstruction will demand.
A second practical constraint complicates any tidy donor calculus. Even where states and institutions express willingness to fund reconstruction conceptually, the mechanics matter. Donors routinely require credible implementers, audit and anti diversion safeguards, and assurances that reconstruction will not be diverted to military ends. In Gaza those requirements collide with three hard facts: Hamas remains a powerful armed actor inside the strip, Israel retains control over most crossings and buffer zones that determine the flow of goods, and many potential troop contributing states are unwilling to deploy forces to provide the sort of guarantor presence Israel and other stakeholders would accept. Without an accepted mechanism to provide physical security for reconstruction works and personnel, major donors and multilateral lenders have signalled that they will calibrate their commitments accordingly. The result is a familiar pattern: visible planning and modest early pledges for relief combined with hesitation on large capital pledges.
That hesitation has immediate consequences on the ground. Gaza’s hospitals and utilities require not only money but uninterrupted access to fuel, spare parts, heavy machinery and construction materials. In the weeks after the pause in fighting there were still contested claims about delays and restrictions on critical items such as bulldozers and generators. Aid organisations warned that without secure, predictable supply routes and protection for engineers and crews, repairs will be slow, expensive and dangerous. Donor reluctance to underwrite the full reconstruction bill follows directly from those operational warnings.
History matters. Donors remember previous rounds of pledges for Gaza and elsewhere that did not translate into on the ground rebuild because governance arrangements were unclear or security conditions deteriorated. Those precedents make capitals more cautious today. Rebuilding Gaza will not be a simple exercise in procurement. It will be a high risk political operation that straddles development, demining, transitional governance and stabilization. Donors will insist on structures that reduce those political and fiduciary risks. Absent agreed, verifiable security guarantees those structures will be limited in scale and scope.
What follows from this reality is straightforward and uncomfortable. If the international community wants reconstruction pledges to be more than performative, it must separate two debates that are now blended. The first is humanitarian and early recovery. The second is long term reconstruction, which requires either a viable Palestinian partner on the ground acceptable to major donors and to Israel, or a credible, internationally mandated stabilization presence able to secure worksites, borders and supply lines while reconstruction proceeds. Without one of those two conditions donors will either withhold or heavily condition capital, shift funding to short term programmes, or force reconstruction to proceed in fragmented, ad hoc patches.
Policymakers should therefore focus on three parallel tracks. First, protect and scale humanitarian access now so that lives are saved and basic services are kept functioning. Second, negotiate a timebound security and oversight architecture that donors, the host population and Israel can verify. Third, place committed funds into a transparent, multi stakeholder trust with strict safeguards and independent monitoring so that when physical security and governance conditions are met, money can flow quickly and with confidence. Each track is politically difficult. None is optional if reconstruction pledges are to become reconstruction results.
Reconstruction financing without credible guarantees will be at best an interim patch for a devastated population and at worst a repeat of past cycles of promises followed by slow, uneven delivery. For the people of Gaza the danger is clear. The international community must decide whether it will pair money with the credible security and institutional arrangements necessary for durable rebuilding, or accept a long term limbo of plans and partial assistance.