For decades, Gaza has been viewed primarily through the language of hard power: siege, bombardment, occupation, and overwhelming military asymmetry. Yet in the aftermath of mass destruction, another form of power quietly takes centre stage. This is the power that operates through reconstruction, humanitarian aid, and post-war governance. In today’s Gaza, soft power no longer softens conflict. It hardens into an architecture that shapes dependency, legitimacy, and political fate long after the bombs fall.

This is the context in which the post-war future of Gaza must now be understood. The next phase of power will not be decided only by ceasefire lines or security arrangements, but by who controls funding flows, who designs reconstruction priorities, who issues contracts, and who defines what “recovery” is allowed to mean. Reconstruction is never a neutral process. It is a form of governance without formal sovereignty.

The scale of destruction in Gaza is not only physical but systemic. Neighbourhoods, hospitals, universities, water networks, electricity systems, and local industries have been reduced to ruins. Rebuilding will require tens of billions of dollars over many years. However, every dollar of aid enters through institutions, and each institution carries its own set of political conditions. In this sense, rebuilding Gaza is not only about restoring infrastructure; it is about reorganising Gaza’s future political economy under layers of external control.

The relevance of the 2025 Global Soft Power Index, published by Brand Finance, to Gaza’s post-war future lies not in whether Palestine is ranked, but in the structure of legitimacy that the Index exposes. As reputational influence becomes increasingly concentrated among a small group of powerful states, those same actors are automatically positioned as the “natural leaders” of post-war reconstruction, humanitarian coordination, and diplomatic mediation — regardless of their political entanglement in the conflict itself. In Gaza, this creates a dangerous asymmetry: moral claims from the victims of destruction are routinely outweighed by the reputational authority of those who control aid flows, donor platforms, and development institutions. Soft power here does not merely shape........

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