Haifa El-Shurafa, an architect from Gaza, stands by her Sacred Rubble project, in Cairo, Egypt, on Feb. 28. Her project proposes a war monument to the dead that would be partly composed of the bombed-out remains of their homes and streets and placed in Unknown Soldier Square in Gaza City.Eric Reguly/The Globe and Mail
In a faded but once-elegant palace in Old Cairo, the future of Gaza is forming in the dreams and designs of young Palestinians who fled to Egypt during the Israel-Hamas war.
On the Friday night before Ramadan, about 15 men and women, most in their 20s and most of them architects, urban designers and engineers, presented their creations for a rebuilt Gaza. They were not formal architectural plans complete with measurements; they were rudimentary sketches, some in 3-D form, that combined memories of prewar Gaza with the notion of what their homes, streets and neighbourhoods would look like when they are rebuilt – if they are rebuilt.
One architect from Gaza, Haifa El-Shurafa, presented her idea for “Sacred Rubble,” a war monument to the dead that would be partly composed of the bombed-out remains of their homes and streets and placed in Unknown Soldier Square in Gaza City. “My wedding rings and my children’s clothes are in that rubble,” she told The Globe and Mail while standing in front of a rendering of her project.
The rendering was accompanied by a poem that read: “That rubble was never just remnants of buildings and debris … it is interwoven rubble … with souls, with pure blood … with the sweat of brows and the savings of a lifetime...It was never ordinary rubble – it is sacred rubble.”
Her project was part of the “Gaza: rebuilding, home, street & neighbourhood” project. One of its chief sponsors was Architects for Gaza, which describes itself as an international community of professors who condemn the Israeli attacks that left Gaza largely destroyed and wish to help it rebuild.
A map shows a reimagined Gaza at the Architecture and Design Studio in Cairo on Feb. 28.Eric Reguly/The Globe and Mail
Other sponsors included the Office of Displaced Designers, a European Union charity that works with displaced communities, and the Global Free Unit, a network of architects and students that use their skills to address social needs, such as designing mobile classrooms for refugee camps.
The Gazans and the professors overseeing their efforts are under no illusion that the projects will see the light of day. The goal, the professors said, is to keep the young architects and designers active while they are in exile, insert them into a community away from home and, ideally, influence the urban planners who will oversee the grand reconstruction plans for Gaza. The shattered 41-kilometre-long strip has been under near-constant bombardment since Hamas’s militia attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Israeli strikes across Gaza kill hundreds and shatter ceasefire with Hamas
“We are trying to empower them to influence the people who will rebuild Gaza,” said Robert Mull, a professor of architecture at the University of Limerick in Ireland and Sweden’s Umea University, and head of Global Free Unit. “The workshop is predicated on the rebuilding of Gaza to respect local ownership, history and culture. Bland proposals would disrupt their cultural identity.”
Another architect involved in the Gaza project, Adam Khan, director of London’s Adam Khan Architects and a member of Architects for Gaza, said: “We want to keep the narrative alive about the future of Gaza.”
The young Gazans’ vision for a rebuilt Gaza remains just that – a vision. The conflict between Hamas and Israel shows no sign of ending.
Explainer: How long will it take and how much will it cost to rebuild Gaza?
The Israel-Hamas ceasefire, which started on Jan. 19, collapsed early this week, when Israel halted all food, fuel and humanitarian aid to Gaza’s two million people to put pressure on Hamas to release 59 Israeli hostages it continues to hold in Gaza. Hamas refused to release more hostages, so Israel resumed its air strikes and ground operations, killing hundreds of Palestinians.
Even if the war does end, there is no internationally accepted plan to raise Gaza from the ashes, nor one for its postwar governance.
Various plans for the new Gaza have been proposed, including one by U.S. President Donald Trump that would expel all Gazans so the strip could be rebuilt as a “Middle East Riviera.” The plan was condemned by the Arab world.
The Egyptian plan, backed by President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, has three phases and essentially sees the wholesale reconstruction of the strip, where almost 1,500 km of roads were destroyed, along with 50 university buildings, half of the hospitals and clinics, and 70 per cent of the agricultural land. The attacks created 50 million tonnes of rubble, equivalent to a dozen times the volume of the Great Pyramid of Giza, Egypt has said.
Nada Thabet Doghmosh, who was an interior design student in Gaza City before fleeing to Egypt with her wounded father a year ago, is pictured in front of plans to rebuild her shattered street in Gaza on Feb. 28.Eric Reguly/The Globe and Mail
The first phase calls for rubble removal and temporary housing – tents and mobile homes – for more than 1.5 million Gazans; the second would see the restoration of 60,000 existing homes and the construction of 200,000 others; the third would build infrastructure such as a ports, an airport and an industrial zone. Egypt puts the total bill at US$53-billion, though financing pledges are impossible in the absence of a permanent ceasefire.
For the exiled Palestinians imagining their ideal Gaza, the restoration of their homes and communities takes precedence over dazzling infrastructure. “They don’t want proposals that would disrupt their identities,” Prof. Mull said. “What is coming across strongest is the concept of home.”
The vision of Ali Shahwan, who was a student of history and archeology in Gaza, is to rebuild his father’s small Shahwan museum, which contains 10,000 artifacts dating back to the Pharaonic, Greek and Roman eras. He also wants to help rebuild the seventh-century Omari Mosque that was largely destroyed by Israeli bombing in December, 2023. “I hold firm to one conviction when peace returns,” he wrote on his project description. “I will rebuild, stone by stone, the landmarks that define our home.”
Nada Thabet Doghmosh, who was an interior design student in Gaza City before fleeing to Egypt with her wounded father a year ago, wants to recreate her destroyed street – one “burdened with the memory of annihilation” – in a sympathetic way that gives “meaning to the rubble.”
And Heba El-Tibi, a civil engineer, would love to see the reconstruction of the Palestine Railway. It operated in the first half of the last century and did not survive the founding of Israel in 1948. “I want to keep the traditions of Gaza alive,” she said. “They are the soul of our country.”
Heba El-Tibi, a civil engineer, points at her vision of rebuilding the Palestine Railway, which operated in the first half of the last century and didn't survive the founding of Israel in 1948.Eric Reguly/The Globe and Mail