A staggering $71.4 billion will be required over the next decade to rebuild Gaza, according to the final Gaza Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment (RDNA) released on Monday by the European Union, the United Nations and the World Bank. The report, published on 20 April 2026, is the most comprehensive accounting yet of the destruction wrought by more than two years of Israel’s devastating military offensive. It finds that $26.3 billion is needed in just the first 18 months to restore essential services, rebuild critical infrastructure and support economic recovery. Yet even as the international community calculates the cost of bricks and mortar, the very foundation upon which any reconstruction must be built, the ceasefire itself, is crumbling. Six months into a truce that was meant to end the bloodshed, Israeli forces have killed more than 700 Palestinians, aid remains tightly restricted, and the core political questions that sparked the conflict remain entirely unresolved. This is not a recovery plan. It is a fantasy written on sinking sand.
The RDNA assessment paints a picture of almost complete societal collapse. According to the joint statement, physical infrastructure damages are estimated at $35.2 billion, with economic and social losses amounting to an additional $22.7 billion. The hardest-hit sectors include housing, health, education, commerce and agriculture, the very sinews of any functioning society. Some 371,888 housing units have been destroyed or damaged, more than 50 percent of hospitals are non-functional, and nearly all schools have been destroyed or damaged. Gaza’s economy has contracted by 84 percent, and the conflict has set back human development in the enclave by an astonishing 77 years. Around 1.9 million people, nearly the entire population of Gaza have been displaced, often multiple times, and more than 60 percent have lost their homes. The death toll, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, has surpassed 72,500, the vast majority of them women and children.
Gaza has been under a fragile ceasefire since October 2025, brokered by the United States after two years of devastating war. On paper, the agreement stipulated an immediate and comprehensive cessation of military operations, a gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces, expanded humanitarian access and the entry of hundreds of aid trucks daily. Six months later, none of these commitments have been fulfilled. Gaza’s Government Media Office has documented more than 2,400 Israeli violations of the ceasefire since October 2025, including air strikes, gunfire, incursions, blockades and starvation policies. According to the territory’s health ministry, at least 777 Palestinians have been killed since the truce took effect, with 32 killings occurring in the first two weeks of April alone. The ceasefire, as one analyst put it, did not stop the killing. It merely reshaped it into a lower-intensity but equally lethal form of attrition.
While diplomats in Washington and Islamabad debate the geopolitics of the Iran war, the people of Gaza are being systematically starved. The Rafah crossing, the only land route connecting the Gaza Strip to the outside world without passing through Israel remains largely closed. Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem has accused Israel of continuing to tighten its blockade, controlling the entry of aid and the number of travelers, and pursuing a policy of “engineered starvation” accompanied by rising prices of essential goods as hunger deepens. Israel has failed to allow in the agreed number of aid trucks, letting in less than half of the required amount. More than 22,000 patients and wounded individuals urgently need to travel abroad for medical treatment, but remain stranded awaiting permission to leave. The World Health Organization has reported that Israeli forces have killed over 500 humanitarian workers and at least 1,500 health workers since October 2023, with attacks accelerating even under the ceasefire. The Red Cross has warned that the humanitarian response in Gaza is on the “verge of total collapse” after months of Israel blocking aid.
The prospects for a durable peace are vanishingly small. The core issues that have driven the conflict, the disarmament of Hamas, the future administration of Gaza, the withdrawal of Israeli troops remain entirely unresolved. Negotiations have stalled, with both sides entrenched in positions that are almost impossible to reconcile. “For Israel, the order is clear: disarmament first, then withdrawal. Whereas for Hamas, it is exactly the opposite,” said Simon Wolfgang Fuchs of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Hamas has rebuffed a US-backed proposal to disarm the group, viewing it as a “trap” designed to ignite civil war in the Gaza Strip and leave Palestinians defenceless while allowing Israeli-backed armed gangs to operate freely. Meanwhile, Israel’s far-right national security minister has openly called for “breaking the legs” of Hamas, while the finance minister has demanded the re-arrest of Palestinian prisoners freed under the truce deal. On the ground in Gaza, civilians live in constant fear of a renewed escalation. “Now they accuse Hamas of stalling, and that is a pretext for renewed escalation and war,” said Abdul-Hayy al-Hajj Ahmed, a 60-year-old resident. “We want to rest. I believe the war will come back”.
The RDNA report itself acknowledges that without a sustained ceasefire, unimpeded humanitarian access, free movement of people and goods, and clear governance arrangements, neither recovery nor reconstruction can succeed. Yet none of these enabling conditions exist. Israel continues to control all border crossings, restrict aid deliveries and carry out military operations inside Gaza. The Palestinian Authority is weak and unpopular, while Hamas remains the de facto governing authority on the ground. The international community has pledged billions, but much of this money has yet to arrive. And looming over everything is the war in Iran, which has created deadly confusion over whether the Gaza ceasefire even applies, as Israel insists it does not and continues to attack Hezbollah in Lebanon. The $71.4 billion price tag for Gaza’s reconstruction is not a path forward. It is a monument to a failure of political will, a sum that will grow larger with every passing day of inaction, every blocked aid truck, and every ceasefire violation. As the world calculates the cost of rebuilding Gaza’s homes, it has yet to answer the only question that truly matters: How do you rebuild a future when the present is still on fire?