Aid and pauses in the fighting may seem crucial for the Gazans right now, but energies also need to be directed to the future of the troubled region after the war.
That's the opinion of Jamie Shea, Senior Fellow of think tank Friends of Europe.
Israel will begin four-hour pauses in northern Gaza to allow people to flee hostilities, the U.S. said on Thursday, although the UN stressed any halt to fighting for humanitarian purposes would need to be agreed by all parties "to be truly effective."
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Palestinian officials said 10,812 Gaza residents had been killed as of Thursday, about 40 percent of them children, in air and artillery strikes while basic supplies are running out and areas laid waste by unrelenting Israeli bombardments.
Israel struck at Gaza in response to Hamas killing 1,400 people, mostly civilians, on October 7, according to Israeli tallies, as well as taking 240 hostages.
"You've got to start thinking about reconstruction and first of all you think of Ukraine as well," Shea told CGTN Europe. "According to the UN, over 200,000 houses have been destroyed, over 1.5 million people in Gaza out of a population of 2.3 million have been displaced. So you've got to start already thinking about how are we going to be able to reconstruct the place.
A Palestinian man sits among the debris of his home that was destroyed by an Israeli strike in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza. /Mohammed Salem/Reuters
"Secondly, it's quite clear that there will have to be some kind of a civilian administration on an interim basis once the fighting is over. Hamas has been the government, for better or for worse. And if Hamas is indeed eliminated, then some kind of administration has to go in.
"Israel has said that it will be in occupation initially. That's obvious because it's already there. But the Israelis know from their experience what happened in 2005 when they left the place, that they are a very unwelcome occupier. The Palestinians will not tolerate being under Israeli rule.
French President Emmanuel Macron chaired a humanitarian meeting to discuss how to safeguard and support Gaza civilians. /Ludovic Marin/Reuters
"Israel has got to think of who it hands over to very quickly. The Palestinian Authority is not up to the job, it did rule Gaza before 2005. An Arab peacekeeping force, a UN peacekeeping force – there are a lot of options on the table, but the U.S. is working this issue in the region and internationally. At least there are some sort of proposals."
Shea, former NATO Deputy Assistant Secretary General, added: "The key thing is for the Israelis to get out of Gaza as quickly as possible. But what they cannot do is try to evict all of the Palestinians into Egypt to solve the problem. But that way, Egypt, Jordan won't take those Palestinians so that Gaza will remain a Palestinian entity.
"The question is, is who is going to rule it and to what extent will that satisfy Israel's existential security concerns?"
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