The Burden of Building Gaza

The same nations that won’t risk their own troops now expect Israel to rebuild for those who celebrated October 7.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the United States and Israel are considering a plan to divide Gaza into two zones: one under Israeli control and the other still ruled by Hamas. Reconstruction would begin only on the Israeli-controlled side, described as a “stopgap” until Hamas can be disarmed and removed from power. The plain truth is staggering. Israeli soldiers could soon be asked to risk their lives not to defeat terrorists, but to protect construction sites for Gazans while Hamas remains in charge a few miles away.

Vice President J. D. Vance told reporters that the goal is to “expand the area that is safe.” Jared Kushner spoke of “starting the construction of a new Gaza” within the zones secured by the IDF. The rhetoric is tidy, technocratic, and detached from reality. The plan would send Israeli soldiers to occupy Gaza not for their own defense, but for the sake of rebuilding a society that largely celebrated the atrocities of October 7. The same people who waved Hamas flags in the streets as Israelis were slaughtered would once again live under the protection of the very soldiers who buried their victims.

Eli Sharabi, a father from Kibbutz Be’eri whose wife and daughters were murdered and who spent 491 days in captivity, writes in his memoir Hostage that Hamas had to protect him from a Gazan mob trying to lynch him. It was not Hamas alone that turned Gaza into a killing ground. It was also the mob, the civilians who cheered, looted, and exalted in murder. To pretend that these same crowds can now be pacified with housing projects is moral self-delusion.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Israel currently controls roughly 53 percent of Gaza under the ceasefire. This “relatively safe” zone would be the focus of the reconstruction plan, even as Hamas continues to rule the rest, refuses to disarm, and fires on Israeli forces. In effect, Israel would occupy Gaza to rebuild it. It would occupy not to conquer, but to prevent Hamas from murdering its own civilians, to keep aid money from being stolen for new tunnels, and to stop the next massacre before it begins.

And yet the moment an Israeli soldier stands guard over a construction site, the international community will denounce Israel for “occupation.” The very act of protecting Gazans from Hamas will be weaponized as proof of oppression. The hypocrisy is staggering. The same nations that love to condemn Israel will not send a single battalion to secure peace or to create the “new Gaza” they dream of from afar. Arab governments refuse to deploy forces. Western governments issue statements. None will risk their own troops.

They demand that Israel rebuild Gaza, but they will not share the burden of making Gaza safe. They call for “stability” while refusing to lift a finger to achieve it. They want progress without responsibility, peace without risk, morality without sacrifice. So once again, it falls to Israel, the one nation that actually bleeds for this cause, to bear the world’s illusions alone.

There can be no greater moral and strategic failure than ordering the Israel Defense Forces to serve as guards for Gazan housing projects. This is not humanitarianism. It is humiliation disguised as virtue. The young men and women of the IDF did not fight through the ruins of Be’eri and Kfar Aza to stand post for international donors. They did not bury their comrades so they could return as caretakers of those who cheered their deaths.

This is being sold as “Total Victory.” In truth, it would be the ultimate “Total Failure.” A divided Gaza rebuilt under Israeli protection would not mark the defeat of Hamas but the defeat of purpose itself. Victory cannot mean that the defenders of Israel are transformed into custodians of those who once called for its annihilation.

Supporters of Israel must ask themselves a difficult question. What would they say to a bereaved parent if their child, G-d forbid, fell protecting a Gazan construction project? How would they explain that the same army that stormed into Gaza to prevent another October 7 was sent back to build homes for those who celebrated it? The soldiers who gave their lives for Israel’s safety deserve remembrance, not re-deployment in service of the world’s hypocrisy. To dishonor that sacrifice in pursuit of diplomatic illusion would be a tragedy no nation should accept.