Gaza rebuild priced at $71 billion, with most homes and nearly all businesses destroyed |
Rebuilding Gaza to its prewar state will cost upwards of $71 billion over five years, according to a recent report by the World Bank, United Nations and European Union, the first such assessment of the damage caused to the enclave afteran October ceasefire halted two years of war there.
The sweeping report, which is more highly detailed than previous assessments conducted during the war, found that the war caused $35.2 billion in physical damage, and it put economic losses — including lost income, displacement-induced costs and more — at an estimated at $22.7 billion.
The total is some $5 billion higher than the last Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment, or RDNA, reported by the World Bank, UN and EU as of October 2024.
Reconstruction in the Strip is largely at a standstill due to the lack of progress toward phase two of the US peace plan, which envisioned the ceasefire reached on October 9, 2025, leading to a transition that will end the Hamas terror group’s rule of the Strip.
The Israel Defense Forces continues to hold over 50 percent of the enclave’s territory, and has refused to allow most heavy equipment into the part of the Strip outside of its control — where nearly all Gazans now live — without Hamas first disarming under the plan.
“Economically, the situation in Gaza has not changed since the ceasefire until now,” said Saif al-Din Odeh, an economist based in Gaza who previously worked for the Palestinian Monetary Authority, on the stagnation in the Strip over the past six months.
The study, published April 20, outlines a three-phase reconstruction plan aimed not only at restoring prewar conditions but also at improving governance and service delivery, starting with a focus on food assistance, temporary housing, temporary learning spaces, and field hospitals over the first year and a half. It envisions large-scale rebuilding of housing, healthcare, and education systems over the next 18 months, followed by a two-year process centered on modernization of housing, the health system and education.
The conclusions are based on data collected over the course of the war and since, including satellite-based data collection, social media analysis, Gaza-based engineers, cost assessors and “on-the-ground sources” such as UN agencies, Gaza-based government ministries, humanitarian actors, and civil society organizations. The report’s authors assessed damage estimates based on prewar conditions, but they calculated reconstruction costs that incorporate elements of optimization, improved efficiency and sustainability.
Reconstructing housing is estimated to cost over $16 billion, while rebuilding the agriculture and food system sectors, along with commercial and industrial activity, is estimated to cost another $19.5 billion.
Another $19 billion will be needed to get the health and education systems back on their feet and build out social protections. Infrastructure recovery is estimated at nearly $10 billion more.
According to the report, the housing sector sustained the heaviest damage, with more than 1.2 million Gazans, roughly 60% of the population, losing their homes amid massive bombardment over two years of war that — unlike earlier, more limited rounds between Hamas and Israel — also targeted high-rise buildings and densely populated urban areas.
“The recent conflict has generated catastrophic destruction of the housing stock,” the report noted, tallying the damage to residences at approximately $18 billion, just over half the total cost of physical damage in Gaza.
According to the analysis, 371,888 housing units, representing over three-quarters of Gaza’s housing stock, were directly affected during the war, nearly 85% of which were completely destroyed.
Thanks to efficiencies, the report estimated that rebuilding the housing sector will cost $16.21 billion, which makes it the largest single recovery line item.
Little of that building has begun yet. A March report by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) found that some 1.7 million Gazans are still living in “displacement sites” — tent encampments and temporary structures — and are unable to return to their homes, either because they were destroyed or........