Transparency must be key as world readies to rebuild Gaza

People walk past stalls selling goods amid the rubble of buildings destroyed during previous Israeli strikes, in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on January 15. Picture: AFP

Speaking from Israel on Friday, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus was asked what Australia’s contribution to Gaza’s reconstruction should be.

He avoided a direct answer, saying it was clear there needed to be a large international effort with no role for Hamas.

Before we start talking about a Marshall Plan for Gaza, Dreyfus could have pointed out that in the past Gaza has been a money pit for international donors. Rather than improving the life of Gazans, much of those resources have served to construct the capabilities of Hamas to repeatedly launch attacks against Israel.

Aid paid Hamas’s expenses in its efforts to destroy Israel. Donor money underwrote the rehabilitation of the terror group’s offensive military capabilities that eventually enabled the terrorist assault on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

Dreyfus could have pointed out that mechanisms meant to prevent UN-provided concrete from being used to build Hamas military tunnels were completely ineffective. Within 10 years, Hamas built the largest military tunnel complex the world has ever seen. The untold billions of dollars misdirected to support the Palestinian terrorism machine in Gaza can’t be recovered. It made some individuals, many living in Qatar, very wealthy.

Before Australia commits any resources to Gaza, we should examine the UN’s Gaza Rehabilitation Mechanism, set up after the 2014 conflict, to see why it failed and what lessons can be learned. That mechanism dealt with issues such as transfer of cement and other construction materials. It established a system of “authorised” vendors to sell and deliver materials.

We should demand great transparency and accountability on the part of any UN involvement in Gaza. In any reconstruction we should be aware that several substantially damaged UNRWA-run refugee camps in northern Gaza were notorious for their role hosting Hamas terror activity. The US under President Joe Biden suspended funding to UNRWA over its exploitation by Hamas and other terror groups, and the Trump administration is unlikely to resume it.

Destroyed buildings by Israeli bombardments inside the Gaza Strip. Picture: AP Photo

We should not repeat previous mistakes by supporting the reconstruction of UNRWA enclaves in Palestinian-ruled areas. The areas these 76-year-old camps occupy should be rebuilt using modern, cost-effective urban planning techniques. Hamas’s military tunnel system connected civilian structures for use in guerrilla warfare.

No reconstruction paid for by international aid should take place without the ground underneath inspected for tunnels.

Gazan authorities must allow international inspectors to supervise construction sites, including with remote monitoring, as a precondition for reconstruction. Follow-up inspections should be allowed to determine that no underground Hamas facilities are subsequently built.

To increase the difficulty for construction of future tunnels under new buildings, Gazan housing should be elevated on pylons, where the ground level is cleared. This is a common building practice in Tel Aviv to allow for parking or small gardens under residences.

Gaza’s terror militias have a track record of exploiting and operating out of civilian infrastructure. New facilities, including ones that could be used as civilian bomb shelters, should be equipped with remote monitoring to determine that facilities are not taken over by Hamas.

The single biggest issue that has bedevilled Palestinian administration is widespread corruption. This will be a pressing challenge for the reconstruction process. Former Labor minister Mike Kelly has suggested that Austrac, our financial intelligence agency, should be used to check that any reconstruction funds don’t support terrorists or are stolen by corrupt individuals.

Men look for their belongings amid the rubble of buildings destroyed in Israeli airstrikes in the central Gaza Strip. Picture: AFP

There is a desire by many Gazans to move elsewhere.

One poll, taken in June 2023 by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research, found 29 per cent of Gazans wanted to emigrate. Subject to appropriate security checking, that immigration could be supported and special consideration made for those seeking asylum in other countries due to fear of persecution by Hamas for a variety of reasons; political, ethnic or sexual. That’s how we would treat others in the world fearing for their safety from oppressive governments.

In cases of hardship and financial distress, which will be the case for many, they should have the ability to avail themselves of assistance to relocate if they so choose, including particularly to Middle East locations. There should be no international institutional differentiation between the relocation services allocated to Syrian, Sudanese or Afghan war refugees and a refugee of the war launched by Hamas in 2023.

Anti-Israel activists will say this amounts to international interference in Palestinian affairs by potentially diluting their multi-generational refugee status. UNRWA and its supporters will continue to embrace a narrative that all Palestinians are refugees until Israel is destroyed. But their story doesn’t obligate the world to underwrite and fund this narrative. It supports violence, corruption and suffering that is unsustainable, wasteful, cruel and stupid.

Australia should not allow immigration from Gaza or indeed the West Bank without the most stringent security checks. We must do more to ensure that individuals wanting to be Australian citizens accept the norms of our democracy and civil society.

More important than reconstructing buildings, Australia might fund training here that mixes practical trade skills with a strong element of civics. Gaza’s only hope long term is to build a society of citizens who abhor Hamas-style Islamist extremism.

Only then is it likely that a viable and peaceful neighbour of Israel may emerge. Until that point we shouldn’t put a single dollar into assistance that ends up lining the pockets of Hamas’s corrupt leaders and terrorists.

Anthony Bergin is a senior fellow at Strategic Analysis Australia.