Category World News

It has been 16 months since Israel’s war on Gaza began, and the enclave lies in ruins.

Rebuilding it will be one of the largest reconstruction efforts in modern history, with the question of who will pay for it still needing to be addressed.

The Israeli military has killed more than 61,700 people and wounded another 110,000, mostly women and children. Many bodies are still buried under up to 50 million tonnes of rubble.

For now, there is no clear plan for reconstruction. Last week, President Donald Trump made comments about the United States “taking over” Gaza and forcing the expulsion of its people, in what human rights groups said is ethnic cleansing.

His proposal has been roundly rejected by international leaders.

True cost of reconstruction remains unknown

Since October 7, 2023, Israel has dropped at least 75,000 tonnes of explosives on Gaza. More than  90 percent of homes and 88 percent of schools have been damaged or destroyed, not to mention the bombing of roads, hospitals, farms and water treatment facilities.

The United Nations estimates that it will cost $53bn to reconstruct Gaza, and a UNDP report released last year said it could take until at least 2040.

“The UNDP’s estimate does not account for all physical infrastructure. It’s just housing,” said Rami Alazzeh, an economics affairs officer at the UN Conference on Trade and Development.

“We won’t know the true cost of reconstruction until an on-the-ground assessment is conducted. That said, we do know it will cost tens of billions of dollars,” Alazzeh said. “And the process will have to begin by clearing the rubble.”

The clear-up alone will cost at least $1.2bn, or “slightly over half of Gaza’s GDP in 2022”, according to Alazzeh.

Removing the rubble will be complicated by unexploded ordnance, dangerous contaminants – like asbestos – and thousands of dead bodies.

Away from physical infrastructure is rebuilding the lives of the people in Gaza.

“War conditions have pushed unemployment up to 90 percent,” said Alazzeh. “Human capital has been badly hit. Children have already lost 16 months of school, and people have not received adequate medical care for a year-and-a-half.”

In the first nine months of the conflict, the World Health Organization reported nearly one million cases of acute respiratory infections in Gaza, half a million cases of diarrhoea and 100,000 cases of scabies, all against a backdrop of high malnutrition.

With Gaza’s long-term development prospects “severely constrained”, Alazzeh said “the pace of reconstruction will depend on the possible resumption of hostilities as well”, in reference to Israel’s repeated destruction of Gaza’s infrastructure in the past.

Funding about more than money

After the 2014 Israeli war on Gaza, international donors pledged $5.4bn for rebuilding efforts in roads, hospitals, housing complexes, and agricultural projects.

This time, reconstruction will focus on similar areas but the overall level of destruction is greater and the situation seems more precarious.

Palestinian development economist Raja Khalidi told Al Jazeera that, away from Trump’s outlandish plan, “key players like Egypt and Qatar won’t put lots of money on the table without a political process”.

For Khalidi, “easing the blockade and generating [construction] momentum will require a government in Gaza that is acceptable to donors, Palestinians and Israelis”. However, he warned that “political consensus has been our Achilles heel for many years”.

Even if funds were forthcoming, Khalidi said, Israel’s ban on “dual-usage” construction materials entering Gaza – dating back to 2007 – inhibits construction. Israel blocks the import of pipes, steel and cement, claiming they could help Hamas to build underground tunnels.

While phase three of the ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel stipulates the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops followed by a three-to-five-year rebuilding process, Khalidi stressed that the chances of reaching that phase are very slim.

Israel has already threatened to return to bombing Gaza if Hamas does not release three agreed-upon captives by Saturday.

Hamas had announced a pause in implementing its side of the ceasefire agreement, citing Israel’s repeated violations of the ceasefire.

Trump’s Middle East plan

Israel has said it will not pay to fix the damage it caused in Gaza.

“Israel has dismissed the idea of compensation”, said Daniel Levy, a former Israeli government adviser. “Unfairly, Israel is also given a say in how Gaza should be run.”

The Israeli government has said it won’t accept a Hamas leadership in Gaza, while many in the international community want a revitalised Palestinian Authority (PA) to govern Gaza – a sentiment not shared by most Palestinians in Gaza.

Until last week, analysts believed Trump – who has long wanted Saudi Arabia to normalise relations with Israel via the Abraham Accords – would try and strong-arm the Israelis and the Palestinians into a regionally acceptable, if fragile, peace.

But after Trump’s proposal to ethnically cleanse Gaza, the possibility of Saudi-Israeli normalisation, which Riyadh has conditioned on the creation of a Palestinian state, has been “kicked into the long grass,” said Levy.

“Saudi Arabia’s position on the establishment of a Palestinian state is firm and unwavering,” its Foreign Ministry said in response to Trump’s “Riviera of the Middle East” plan.

“I’m not holding my breath on a two-state solution,” said Levy. “Unfortunately for Gaza, reconstruction is a shadow conversation. Rebuilding is about politics … and ultimately tipping the balance away from Israeli interests.”

“I don’t expect Trump or the international community to do that anytime soon,” he said.

For the economist Khalidi, Palestinian resolve after 16 months of war offers a glimpse into the future.

The Houthis have gone through something of a transformation in their reputation since the onset of Israel’s war on Gaza in October 2023.

A rebel group from Yemen’s far north, the Houthis had fought the Yemeni government and a Saudi-led coalition for almost a decade, proving a degree of military prowess, but had little ability to project power regionally, even as they occasionally fired missiles and drones towards Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

And domestically, among many Yemenis, they were unpopular, regarded by their enemies as a theocratic and repressive group that wanted to end Yemen’s republic – even as the Iranian ally defended their takeover of much of Yemen as a popular revolution.

A lot has changed in the past 16 months as the Houthis demonstrated their capabilities – firing projectiles deep into Israel and causing damage – as well as their willingness to challenge the West and attack shipping in the seas around Yemen, all ostensibly in support of the Palestinians in Gaza.

For those actions, among many in the region and beyond, the Houthis have become a symbol of resistance against Israel and the West and the true representative of the Yemeni state.

And domestically, it has proven difficult for the group’s enemies to criticise their actions in support of the Palestinians, a popular position in a country as staunchly pro-Palestinian as Yemen.

“The Houthi leadership has not feared the United States or any other Western force,” said Abdullah Yahia, a high school graduate from Sanaa. “Offering support to Gaza is the real gauge of courage and humanity. This is why I have changed my view on the Houthis.”

“They have succeeded in increasing their popularity considerably,” Adel Dashela, a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia Global Centers – Amman, told Al Jazeera. “Countless people worldwide feel Gaza has been wronged, and that any action to support its population is praiseworthy.”

On the military front, Dashela believes that the true impact of the Houthis’ actions has been on the global shipping industry, rather than in its attacks on Israel – which have only caused limited damage.

Many shipping companies now avoid the Red Sea – a vital international shipping route – because of Houthi attacks that US-led reprisals were unable to stop. The attacks on shipping – which, according to a tally by the nonprofit Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED), have numbered more than 200 since the start of the war – have increased shipping costs and led to cargo traffic through Egypt’s Suez Canal plummeting.

All in all, the Houthis have grown in strength and are emboldened, at a time when Iran and pro-Iranian groups across the wider region – such as the Palestinian group Hamas and the Lebanese group Hezbollah – appear weaker.

“No longer content to focus their sights just on Yemen, [the Houthis’] growing ambitions to fill the void left by Iran’s crumbling axis cannot be ignored,” wrote Beth Sanner, a former US deputy director of national intelligence, and Jennifer Kavanagh, senior fellow and director of military analysis at Defense Priorities, in an article for Foreign Policy last month.

More enemies

On January 16, after the Gaza ceasefire was agreed, the group’s leader, Abdel-Malik al-Houthi, warned that attacks on Israel would resume if the truce was breached, a threat that has been repeated. And on January 20, a day after the ceasefire began, senior Houthi official Mohammed Ali al-Houthi said that the group had possession of missiles “with 100 percent accuracy”.

“Whoever thinks that we exaggerate should review our attacks on ships linked to [Israel],” he added.

The Houthis have gone from a localised threat to one that now poses a direct challenge to Israeli and Western interests, who are now more focused on finding a way to defeat, or at least seriously weaken, the Houthis.

The US and the United Kingdom began bombing Houthi targets in Yemen in January 2024, and Israel has also conducted its own attacks. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said that his country would “hunt down” Houthi leaders.

The US has now redesignated the Houthis as a “foreign terrorist organisation” – one of the first moves by President Donald Trump in his new term in office.

A White House statement explained that US policy was to now cooperate with regional partners to eliminate the Houthis’ capabilities and operations and deprive them of resources.

“The US redesignation of the Houthi group as a foreign terrorist organisation is part of the West’s broader campaign against Iran’s proxies in the region,” Abdusalam Mohammed, head of Yemen’s Abaad Studies and Research Center, told Al Jazeera.

“The redesignation of the Houthis, I expect, is a prologue to a [wider] Western military operation to weaken or dismember the Houthi group.”

The resolution has enraged the Houthis, who say that the US intends to worsen the suffering of the Yemeni people due to their support for Palestinians.

The Houthi Political Office in Sanaa called on “free nations” to denounce the US decision, stating: “Our armed forces will remain on alert and ready for any military escalation in Yemen.”

“With their designation as a terrorist group, the Houthis have lost the opportunity to resolve the conflict in Yemen through peace talks. The West now appears more inclined to eliminate the group rather than include it in a comprehensive diplomatic process,” said Mohammed.

The Houthis will not be allowed to “act unchecked”, said Khalfan al-Touqi, an Omani political and economic analyst. “Following the weakening of other Iranian proxies in the region, the West – particularly the US and the UK – sees this as a golden opportunity to diminish the Houthi group’s power as much as possible,” he added.

Al-Touqi argues that the US, Europe, Israel and Middle Eastern governments will prioritise weakening the Houthi group in the coming months.

“We have clear evidence of what happened to Iran’s allies in Lebanon, Iraq and Syria. Now, only one Iran-backed group remains significantly influential: the Houthis. However, this group cannot sustain its strength indefinitely,” al-Touqi stated.

He added: “President Trump views the Houthi group as a significant problem. As a result, he is likely to mobilise forces to target and weaken the Houthis. While they may not be entirely eliminated, their capabilities will undoubtedly be diminished.”

Tough to defeat

However, the Houthis have found themselves underestimated before – if anything, it is their ability to survive in the face of seemingly much stronger enemies that has contributed to their belief in a divine ability to overcome opponents.

But the group would also likely welcome regional de-escalation, and an opportunity to declare victory over Israel.

“The cessation of the Gaza war would be a lifeline for the Houthis,” said Ayed al-Manna, a Kuwaiti academic and political researcher. “The group would de-escalate its operations, as it would have no justification for continuing such attacks on shipping lanes.”

If the Gaza conflict intensifies again, and the Houthis resume attacks on Israel and shipping in the Red Sea, then the Yemeni group may find themselves under heavier attack than before.

Some have suggested that this could lead to the Houthis facing a similar fate to another Iranian ally, Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, who was overthrown in December, or that the Yemeni group’s leadership could be assassinated, as much of the leadership of the Lebanese group Hezbollah has been.

But while the Houthis are in the same pro-Iranian camp, there are clear differences – including that Israel and the West appear to not have the same intelligence on the Houthis as they have had on Hezbollah and Hamas, and that the Houthis have already withstood years of Saudi-led coalition bombing and survived.

“The Houthi group still holds significant strengths – it possesses vast arsenals, thousands of fighters, firm control over its territories, and, most crucially, the weakness of its Yemeni opponents,” said Mohammed al-Samaei, a Taiz-based political researcher and journalist.

These factors, al-Samaei noted, allow the group to endure confrontations with both local and foreign forces.

When United States President Donald Trump announced his latest tariffs on steel and aluminium this week, he insisted there would be “no exemptions, no exceptions”.

Washington’s closest allies in the Asia-Pacific are hoping that they will be able to change the mercurial US president’s mind.

Japan and Australia, US treaty allies with export-reliant economies, have both confirmed that they are seeking exemptions from Trump’s 25 percent tariffs on steel and aluminium, while South Korea, also a US treaty ally, has announced it is seeking high-level talks on the issue.

“We will take necessary measures, including lobbying the United States for an exemption, while closely monitoring any possible impact on the Japanese economy,” Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who met Trump in Washington last week, told parliament on Wednesday.

Since both Japan and South Korea have large trade surpluses with the US, their efforts to sway Trump are likely to include commitments to increase US imports.

The US trade deficit with Japan and South Korea stood at about $68bn and $66bn, respectively, in 2024, mostly as a result of auto exports.

Tokyo is also likely to point to “its technical advantage, which is desperately needed by the US to take a lead in new strategic industries”, said Shigeto Nagai, the Asia head of Oxford Economics.

“Japan enjoys a large trade surplus with the US for machineries, which gives incentive to the US to impose tariffs,” Nagai told Al Jazeera.

“At the same time, the technological advantage of Japanese machineries such as semiconductor equipment and materials will make it difficult to quickly find substitutes.”

After their talks at the White House on Friday, Trump and Ishiba released a joint statement acknowledging the Republican’s agenda of boosting domestic industry, including a pledge to strengthen energy security by “unleashing the United States’ affordable and reliable energy and natural resources”.

At the same time, Ishiba impressed upon Trump that Japan has been the largest foreign investor in the US for the past five years running and announced plans for $1 trillion in further investments, including in artificial intelligence.

“My sense is that this [tariff exemptions] remains negotiable,” Ryota Abe, an economist at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC), told Al Jazeera.

“The adverse impacts on the US economy would not be small should the relationship between the two seriously be damaged. And this would not be the best choice even for the US.”

Although the contours of his second administration’s policy priorities are still unfolding, Trump has taken his reputation for being fond of a deal with him from his first term.

Despite insisting that his tariffs would apply to all countries, Trump almost immediately left the door open to an exception for Australia, saying he would give “great consideration” to an exemption.

“We have a surplus with Australia, one of the few,” Trump said.

Trump’s senior counsellor for trade and manufacturing, Peter Navarro, poured cold water on those hopes the following day, claiming that Australia was “killing” the US aluminium market.

Australia’s aluminium exports surged after Trump first entered office in 2016, peaking at about 269,000 tonnes in 2019.

Exports have fluctuated considerably since then, coming in at 83,000 tonnes in 2024, down from 210,000 the previous year.

“Overall, the second Trump administration is acting both more ruthlessly and chaotically than the first, so allies like Japan – and Australia, and NATO/EU [European Union] allies – will continue to confront a highly volatile and difficult diplomatic situation, which will require extremely dextrous leadership,” Craig Mark, an adjunct lecturer in economics at Hosei University in Tokyo, told Al Jazeera.

During his first term, Trump did not adopt a uniform approach to granting reprieves to friendly countries and allies.

In 2018, his administration exempted Australia from steel and aluminium tariffs and granted South Korea a duty-free steel quota of up to 2.63 million tonnes.

But his administration did not extend such relief to Japan.

The administration of former US President Joe Biden eased the tariffs on Japanese steel in 2022, agreeing to allow 1.25 million metric tonnes of steel to enter the US each year duty-free while keeping tariffs on aluminium in place.

“The experience of the first Trump administration shows how Japan could find itself the target of US tariffs yet again, despite all its diplomatic efforts,” said Mark, the Hosei University professor, pointing out that former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe went to “great lengths to build a close personal relationship with Trump”.

While Trump has a “much more expansive view of his remit”, compared with his first term, and views tariffs as a “genuinely valuable tool that can be used to solve a myriad of problems”, the overriding feature of his administration is uncertainty, said Deborah Elms, head of trade policy at the Hinrich Foundation in Singapore.

Elms said she was not certain Trump himself would be able to provide answers about his policy direction or goals, “or if he did so, that his answers now would be the same as what he might say in another hour or day or week”.