The Financial Times monitored some of the devastation caused by the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip in a war that lasted nearly 3 months of bombing, in which more than 22,185 Palestinians were martyred and 57,35 others were injured, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
The British newspaper reviewed the phases that the Gazans went through, through what it reported from the Palestinian businessman Faisal Shawwa regarding the post-Oslo era and the hope for a sustainable settlement of the conflict with the occupation that has been ongoing for decades, through the rule of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in the Gaza Strip and its ongoing siege for about 17 years. , all the way to the current war in which he lost his investments in factories, farms, construction, and agriculture.
Universal suffering
According to Shawa, all residents of Gaza – rich, poor, young and old – are suffering from the air, land and sea attacks by Israel in the Strip. Almost every family has lost a relative or friend, and all elements of normal life in the area have been destroyed, while residents fear that there will be no survival. What they return to when the war ends, amid the belief among many that Israel’s ultimate goal is to make the Strip uninhabitable and force its residents to abandon their homeland.
Shawa said, “They want to make Gaza unlivable. Even if we were allowed to return tomorrow, how would we live? They are destroying our homes, our investments, our factories, our trees, the infrastructure and everything,” the newspaper quoted him as saying.
The far-right Israeli Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, suggested, in an intervention on Israeli Army Radio last weekend, that between 100,000 and 200,000 Arabs (Palestinians) be kept in the Gaza Strip, calling for the displacement of the rest.
Although his comments do not reflect official policy – according to the British newspaper – many Gazans believe that Israel wants to push them south to Egypt. The government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to persuade European leaders, in the first weeks of the war, to pressure Cairo to accept refugees from Gaza.
But Egypt refused to accept the forced displacement of Gaza residents to its territory, but fears still exist, according to the newspaper. Palestinians fear a repeat of the Nakba of 1948, when about 700,000 of them were displaced following the first war between Arab countries and the newly established Israel.
About 1.7 million Gazans come from families that fled their homes 75 years ago, and are classified as refugees by the United Nations.
The Financial Times quoted Azmi Kishawi, a Gaza researcher at the International Crisis Group, as saying, “People are thinking, when will this end? Will we return? Will they push us into Sinai?”
The Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip forced more than 85% of the population of 2.3 million people to leave their homes, and they were squeezed into ever narrower areas in the south, taking refuge with everything they could carry in crowded residential buildings, schools, hospitals and buildings used by the United Nations. And tents.
The United Nations says a quarter of the population has been pushed towards famine, with people queuing for hours to get bread or use the toilet, and many not knowing if their homes are still standing.
Destruction of the university
At the level of another younger group, the newspaper quoted Mahmoud Rustom, a third-year information technology student at the Islamic University of Gaza, as saying that the Israeli army destroyed his university, where he hoped to finish his studies, claiming that the Hamas movement was using it as a “training camp for military intelligence agents, as well as To develop and produce weapons.
According to the Financial Times, it is not unusual for the residents of Gaza to be forced to pick up the pieces of their lives amidst the rubble. A fleeting moment of hope after the Oslo Accords was shattered by the collapse of the peace process and the outbreak of the second intifada in 2000. A large portion of the Strip’s infrastructure was damaged or destroyed, and the residents of Gaza were forbidden. From working in Israel and the settlements, severe restrictions were imposed on the movement of goods into the Strip, and any ideas about a Palestinian state were crushed.
Although Israel withdrew completely from the region in 2005, it maintained control over its airspace and borders, with the exception of 12 kilometers on the border with Egypt, with Hamas controlling the Strip.
Gaza’s real GDP per capita shrank between 2006 and 2022 by 27%, reaching $1,257, according to the United Nations Trade and Development Authority (UNCTAD). When the last war broke out, more than three-quarters of the population depended on international aid, with an unemployment rate of 44%.
The United Nations estimates the percentage of housing units that were damaged or destroyed in the Strip at more than 60%, in addition to hundreds of schools, dozens of mosques, roads, bakeries, shops, and thousands of other businesses, and more than half of Gaza’s hospitals are no longer working.
Health system
As for the health system in the Gaza Strip, Ghassan Abu Sitta, the British-Palestinian surgeon who worked in Gaza, said that it was systematically dismantled, adding, “Look at how the hospitals were dismantled one after another… Will Israel allow reconstruction materials to enter Gaza? The matter goes beyond the Palestinians.” “It needs international participation.”
The Financial Times quoted Philippe Lazzarini, head of the United Nations refugee agency for the Palestinians, as describing what happened in Gaza as “a war that exceeds all standards…the level of destruction is staggering.”
As for government services, other than health and emergency workers, according to the newspaper’s monitoring, they have become negligible with the displacement of public employees who fear they will be targeted.
The Financial Times expected the cost of rebuilding to be billions of dollars. According to the International Monetary Fund, the very limited 2014 war caused damage ranging between $3 billion and $6 billion.
Associate Professor of Political Science at Al-Azhar University in Gaza, Mukhaymar Abu Saada, likened the destruction of Gaza to being like the second version of German cities after World War II, adding that Gaza now needs to build everything from scratch.
He believes that Gaza, like post-war Germany, will need its own Marshall Plan. But no one knows who will finance it.
The Financial Times quoted an Arab diplomat as saying that the oil-rich Gulf states could help finance construction work in Gaza after the war, but he ruled out investing unless they knew what the situation would be like after the war, as they need to see real hope for a two-state solution.
On the other hand, the devastation inflicted on Gaza changed the public mood among Israel’s Western allies, according to the Financial Times, and even US President Joe Biden, its strongest supporter, criticized the “indiscriminate bombing” last month. France has pushed for a humanitarian truce while the UK and Germany have called for a “sustainable ceasefire leading to sustainable peace.”
But Israeli officials made it clear that international pressure would not deter Tel Aviv from pursuing its goals, which are securing the release of Israeli hostages, destroying Hamas’ military capacity, and capturing or killing its senior leaders. The Israeli Prime Minister warned that reconstruction will not take place until the Strip becomes demilitarized. “Palestinian society begins to uproot the roots of extremism.”
According to the newspaper, many doubt the possibility of defeating Hamas completely. Abu Saada says, “Hamas has not surrendered and will not surrender,” but he believes that the war will lead to a shrinkage of the middle class and aggravation of poverty.
An opinion poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research showed a noticeable increase in support for Hamas in the West Bank, and a slight increase in support for the group in Gaza compared to what it was three months ago. In both regions, Hamas enjoys much higher support rates than the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah).
