The destruction in Gaza from the Israel-Hamas war will likely require more than a decade of rebuilding, President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff said, after becoming the first U.S. official to visit the enclave in 15 years.
Israel's military campaign in Gaza over the last 15 months has destroyed much of the infrastructure in the enclave, and an overwhelming majority of Palestinians living in Gaza have been displaced from their homes, and in many cases, several times. Israel's military ordered Palestinians to flee south during the war, and only since the ceasefire began, were they permitted to travel back north.
"What was inescapable is that there is almost nothing left of Gaza," he told Axios after his visit. "People are moving north to get back to their homes and see what happened, and turn around and leave ... there is no water and no electricity. It is stunning just how much damage occurred there."
In Witkoff's assessment, the demolition and moving of debris will take about five years. Assessing the full impact the Hamas tunnels would have on new infrastructure could take a couple more years, and then the reconstruction itself would require a few more years as well.
"There is nothing left standing. Many unexploded ordnances. It is not safe to walk there. It is very dangerous. I wouldn't have known this without going there and inspecting," he said. "There has been this perception we can get to a solid plan for Gaza in five years. But it's impossible. This is a 10- to 15-year rebuilding plan."
Witkoff called the enclave "uninhabitable."
Trump recently floated the idea of moving Palestinian civilians from Gaza to Egypt and Jordan while the enclave is rebuilt, which critics denounced, saying it would amount to ethnic cleansing. Egyptian and Jordanian leaders publicly rejected the suggestion.
“I’d rather get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing at a different location where they can maybe live in peace for a change,” the president told reporters on Air Force One. “You’re talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing and say: ‘You know, it’s over.’”
The war began after Hamas carried out the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack in southern Israel, in which they killed about 1,200 people and kidnapped another 250 or so. It was the largest terrorist attack in Israel's history.
Roughly 45,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's retaliatory war, about half of which were civilians, Israeli officials have acknowledged.
Hamas intentionally embeds itself within civilian populations and spent several years building expansive underground tunnels to strategically place itself underneath civilian sites.
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Israel and Hamas agreed to a six-week-long ceasefire earlier this month. During that period, Hamas agreed to release 33 of the 100 hostages they are still holding in exchange for more than a thousand Palestinian prisoners. Hamas wants the war to be over permanently, which would allow them to reconstitute and potentially continue as the governing body over the Gaza Strip.
Israeli officials have thus far refused to permanently end the war to ensure that doesn't occur.