Obvious thing that we've all been wondering about

 From the New York Times:

Israel cannot defeat Hamas without installing a new administration in Gaza, the Israeli military’s chief spokesman said on Wednesday, reflecting frustration among the country’s security brass over the Israeli government’s failure to advance a postwar alternative to Hamas’s rule in Gaza.

“The idea that it is possible to destroy Hamas, to make Hamas vanish — that is throwing sand in the eyes of the public,” Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said in a broadcast interview with Israel’s Channel 13. “If we do not bring something else to Gaza, at the end of the day, we will get Hamas.”

His comments seem to signal a rare, open dispute between the military and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Since the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, Mr. Netanyahu has repeatedly promised the Israeli public “absolute victory” over the Palestinian armed group, vowing that the war would not end until Israel destroys Hamas’s military and government.

It's this frustrating aspect of the Gaza situation that is really dismaying.   

I mean, it's hard to see any solution to the never-ending conflict without a major change in attitude on the Gazan side of the fence.  And Israel's large scale obliteration of the place is hardly conducive to that.

Hence, Gaza will probably end up have billions spent on making it liveable again, because humanitarian needs, etc.  The population will continue to massively resent Israel for at least another generation or two, and probably war will break out again, even if the current Right wing element in Israel diminishes.    

Really, when I think about it, I wonder whether it's ever possible to make Gaza "work".   Even allowing for a two state solution (hypothetically), I don't know that it really has much going for it in terms of economic development.  The coastline looks very ordinary, and it really just seems a never ending stretch of pretty dull looking urbanisation with little space for large industry or farming.   And with Hamas, it's been particularly hamstrung:

Several military conflicts have seriously damaged the Gazan economy since Hamas took political control in 2005: Gaza War (2008–2009), Operation Pillar of Defense (2012), 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict, Gaza–Israel clashes (November 2018), 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis, and the 2023 Israel–Hamas war. In June 2005, there were 3,900 factories in the city employing 35,000 people, and in December 2007, 195 factories were remaining, employing 1,700 people. The construction industry was also affected, with tens of thousands of employees out of work. The blockade damaged the agriculture sector and 40,000 workers dependent on cash crops were left without income. Unemployment was compounded when Israel ended its reliance on cheap labor from the Gaza Strip in 2005.^[10]

I assume it survives just by a continual influx of funds from other countries, which is well intentioned; but really, it was always asking for trouble to support a government that didn't want a resolution with Israel.  An article from 2010 in the Wall Street Journal starts:

It is easy to understand why many Westerners are bewildered by the conflict in Israel-Palestine. Confrontations like the springtime flotilla crisis make it easy for people to see the situation as too complex, ugly, and hopeless, and they switch off. But we can't ignore what goes on in Israel and the Palestinian territories, if for no reason other than we're affecting it: Our money is supporting indoctrination in the territories that is sowing the seeds of future conflict for decades to come. We have a responsibility to take that incredibly seriously.

Of course, there's also some support from those Muslim countries that encourage them to never give up the dream of taking back Israel, despite the obvious history of how that is just not going to happen.

While it seems clear that some Arab countries are sick of the problem, none of them are brave enough to say "time to give up, just come here and start afresh".

Now that I think of it - Saudi Arabia hopes to get hundreds of thousands to live in a lengthy high tech glass box building in the middle of the desert (the stupid Neom project) with no indication that anyone really wants to move there.   Maybe they should be offering that to any Gazan who has at least finished high school!