RAND Offers Plan to House Palestinians While Rebuilding Gaza, After Fighting Ends
For Release
Thursday
March 27, 2025
The Israel-Hamas conflict has thus far killed nearly 50,000 people, displaced nearly a million people, and destroyed more than 60 percent of Gaza's housing stock and much of its critical infrastructure. Post-conflict, rebuilding housing and infrastructure will likely take more than a decade, and rebuilding housing alone will make up three-quarters of reconstruction costs.
A RAND report offers a flexible plan to house displaced Palestinians while their homes and communities are rebuilt. “From Camps to Communities: Post-Conflict Shelter in Gaza” describes steps that could be implemented as soon as there is an approach to security and the conflict ends. While many parts of Gaza are uninhabitable, RAND analysis of satellite data finds that there are likely some neighborhoods where people could live during rebuilding, as well as sufficient open rural areas that could accommodate camps and new construction. The rationale for offering this plan now is to avoid housing people in poorly laid out temporary camps that usually become permanent, with low quality of life and an environment that can foster radicalization.
“Planning and building interim housing for displaced Palestinians is a first step in restoring their health, safety, and dignity,” said Shelly Culbertson, a RAND senior researcher. The new report is part of an ongoing series in which RAND offers short- and long-term plans for after the conflict. The report follows “Pathways to a Durable Israeli-Palestinian Peace”, released last month, and precedes “A Spatial Vision for Palestine: A Long-Term Plan that Can Begin Now,“ that covers long term infrastructure planning, to be released in April.
The new report describes main options for rebuilding Gaza, all of which will be needed to some extent in combination:
- Sheltering Palestinians outside Gaza (5 percent have already fled)
- Razing and rebuilding completely destroyed areas by large construction firms, while civilians live elsewhere
- Urban redevelopment, incrementally repairing and rebuilding certain neighborhoods while people live in them, an approach the authors call incremental urbanism
- A new type of camp that the study terms future-oriented camps—laid out with the structure of neighborhoods, with people living in them during incremental rebuilding of a permanent community
- Traditional formal and informal tent or caravan camps
- New neighborhoods constructed on undeveloped land
Using incremental urbanism in neighborhoods and future-oriented camps has six steps: assessment of war damage; land-use planning; short-term settlement; establishment of community hubs; medium-term rebuilding; and long-term rebuilding. The plan envisions people living in buildings, tents, and caravans, all attached to hubs that provide food, sanitation, medical care, and utilities while reconstruction is underway.
This RAND research offers clear criteria and a methodology for where and how to rebuild housing in Gaza. Both are flexible and can be refined as more information is gathered. It includes maps based on previous satellite images of individual communities. One caveat: this plan relies on satellite data that have not been verified, building by building, on the ground. Data have changed rapidly due to the ongoing nature of the war.
The challenges facing Gaza's reconstruction timelines bear similarities to those in other war-torn or disaster-struck areas. RAND estimates it could take decades to reconstruct some areas, based on similar reconstruction efforts post-conflict or post-disaster in other nations.
Moreover, it's important to develop a management structure to oversee this level of housing and infrastructure rebuilding, in a way that blends international expertise while involving local Gazans in decisionmaking. Ideally, the new governance structure for Gaza will be agreed upon by key stakeholders, international organizations, and donors.
The next report in the series, “A Spatial Vision for Palestine: A Long-Term Plan That Can Begin Now,” will soon be released. It will cover infrastructure planning in both the West Bank and Gaza in six sectors: governance, environment, cities, transportation, energy, and water.
“From Camps to Communities: Post-Conflict Shelter in Gaza” authors Shelly Culbertson and C. Ross Anthony are available for media interviews.
