‘We Need Everything’: Gazans Ponder Mammoth Task of Rebuilding

 An aerial photograph taken by a drone shows Palestinians walking through the destruction caused by the Israeli air and ground offensive, in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP)
An aerial photograph taken by a drone shows Palestinians walking through the destruction caused by the Israeli air and ground offensive, in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP)
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‘We Need Everything’: Gazans Ponder Mammoth Task of Rebuilding

 An aerial photograph taken by a drone shows Palestinians walking through the destruction caused by the Israeli air and ground offensive, in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP)
An aerial photograph taken by a drone shows Palestinians walking through the destruction caused by the Israeli air and ground offensive, in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP)

As bombs rained down and entire neighborhoods around her were pulverized, Shayma Abualatta found the only way to cope with the trauma of Gaza's 15-month-long war was to make sure she did all she could to get an education.

Now the 21-year-old, who is studying computer science and computer engineering, wants to use what she learned to help rebuild a land where the most basic lifelines have been severed and where everyone needs everything.

"I want to stay in my country, to stay where I am, to stay with my relatives and the people I love," she said.

As a fragile ceasefire takes hold in Gaza, Palestinians are beginning to think cautiously about rebuilding - a Herculean task when the entire 2.3 million population is homeless with many displaced multiple times.

During the conflict, Abualatta said the only way she could exercise some control over her life was to keep studying. But for the first three months of the war, she could not even bring herself to open her laptop. The first time she did, she cried.

"I felt like it was such a blessing to have the opportunity to achieve something," she said in a phone interview from central Gaza, where she had fled from air strikes in the north.

The Israeli military has laid to waste to much of Gaza in its campaign to eliminate Hamas in retaliation for the group's Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

Gaza health authorities say at least 47,000 people have been killed in the conflict, with the rubble likely holding the remains of thousands more.

As well as freeing 33 of the 98 Israeli and foreign hostages still held by Hamas, the ceasefire deal requires Israel to allow 600 truckloads of aid into Gaza every day for six weeks.

"We need the border crossings to open without restrictions," Abualatta said. "We need everything."

Electricity is one of her main concerns. Every day she walks from the tent where she now lives to a local charging point where she can get online. With peace, she hopes more solar panels can be brought into the territory.

"We just need to clear the rubble and set up tents over them," she said. "We will start off the with tents and develop them slowly."

That might prove easier said than done.

SCALE OF CRISIS ‘UNIMAGINABLE’

The scale of the humanitarian crisis is "almost unimaginable", Alexandra Saieh of charity Save the Children, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, "multiple pressing crises are unfolding, and they are deeply interconnected".

Save the Children said it would prioritize sending food, water and medicine for children.

"The race is on to save children facing hunger and disease as the shadow of famine looms," Saieh said.

The United Nations says removing 42 million tons of rubble in Gaza could take more than a decade and cost $1.2 billion.

Fuel to power water desalination plants is also essential, said Vincent Stehli, head of operations at aid group Action Against Hunger. But repairing water networks would require items such as metal pipes that Israel currently bans entering Gaza.

Stehli said aid groups "cannot wait 10 or 15 years," until the rubble is cleared. "Reconstruction has to happen. Recovery has to happen to some of the key installations," he said.

Abualatta agrees. When her Gaza-based university suspended online classes, she sought out University of the People (UoPeople), a tuition-free, completely online university, and began taking computer science courses.

She expects to graduate next year.

UoPeople has raised $300,000 to pay for scholarships for students in Gaza, Shai Reshef, the university's president, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

"If we get more money, we will get even more of them, as many as we as we have money for," he said.

But he said students could not wait till their schools and universities were rebuilt to get an education.

"What do you do with the kids? With the students? Teach them online," Reshef said.



Iran Loosens Import Restrictions on Foreign Cars, iPhones to Mask its Economic Woes

Visitors gather around a car on display at the 6th International Tehran Auto Show and related industries, just outside Tehran, Iran, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Visitors gather around a car on display at the 6th International Tehran Auto Show and related industries, just outside Tehran, Iran, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
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Iran Loosens Import Restrictions on Foreign Cars, iPhones to Mask its Economic Woes

Visitors gather around a car on display at the 6th International Tehran Auto Show and related industries, just outside Tehran, Iran, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Visitors gather around a car on display at the 6th International Tehran Auto Show and related industries, just outside Tehran, Iran, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

All architecture student Amirhossein Azizi wanted for his 19th birthday was the latest iPhone — and for Iran's cash-strapped theocracy, it was just the gift they needed as well.

Just buying a top-of-the-line iPhone 16 Pro Max in Iran's capital cost him on the day 1.6 billion rials ($1,880). An additional 450 million rials ($530) is required for import fees and registration on government-managed mobile phone networks.

“I’m very happy to own one of the most expensive phones in the country," Azizi said. His father, Mohammad, laughed nearby and added: “Maybe if they had to earn the money themselves, they wouldn’t be so quick to spend it.”

The purchase is only possible after Iran lifted import bans on expensive goods like foreign cars and new iPhones, yielding to public demand for the products while also trying to mask the dire straits of its economy, The AP reported.

While being described as a way to boost Iran's much-vaunted “resistance economy," the decisions trapped Iranians into buying more affordable locally produced vehicles long derided as “death wagons” and boosted the prices of aging, second-hand iPhones.

They also provide Iran with much-needed tax revenues as its government struggles under international sanctions over its nuclear program. Uncertainty over how US President Donald Trump will deal with Iran also has put pressure on its rial currency, which sits at record lows against the dollar.

Powerful forces within Iran long have been believed to be taking advantage of the sanctions, while those benefiting may just be among the country's most well-off citizens.

"It’s more about perception than reality,” Iranian economist Saeed Leilaz said.

‘Resistance’ economics at play Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, now 85, first proposed the idea nearly 15 years ago as Tehran faced its first round of intense sanctions over its nuclear program, which the West fears puts Iran at the precipice of obtaining an atomic bomb. Iran maintains its program is peaceful — even as it enriches uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels.

“Sanctions are not new for us," Khamenei said in a 2010 speech. "All achievements have been made and all the great movements of the people of Iran have been launched while we were under sanctions.”

In some ways, it's worked for Iran's ruling clerics since Trump unilaterally reimposed sanctions on Tehran after withdrawing America from the 2015 nuclear deal. Iran struck deals with China to continuing buying its crude oil, likely at a discount.

Those in Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which has grown into a major power center under Khamenei, handle the sales — both funding their operations against Israel during the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip and creating a new wealthy elite loyal to Khamenei.

But for the average person, there's clearly a before and an after for the life under the nuclear deal, which saw Iran agree to drastically limit its enrichment and overall stockpile of uranium.

At the time of the deal, the Iranian rial traded at 32,000 to $1. Now, a decade later, $1 was worth 885,000 rials on Tuesday.

The public's savings have evaporated, pushing average Iranians into holding onto gold, real estate and other tangible wealth. Others pursue cryptocurrencies or fall to get-rich schemes.

Iran lifts car and iPhone import restrictions, seeking cash Iran banned the import of foreign cars in 2017, while not allowing iPhones newer than the 13 to be registered on the country’s mobile phone networks. The phone decision set off a scramble for older iPhones, boosting their price, while used car prices for foreign models remain high as well.

In the last Persian year ending in March 2024, Iran imported $3.2 billion worth of mobile phones, customs data shows. The cut for high-end iPhones makes them a lucrative option to plug some of the gaping holes in Iran's government spending — though Iran's foreign currency reserves remain low due to sanctions.

“Lifting restrictions on a few platforms or allowing iPhone imports are the kinds of steps the government can take quickly and with minimal cost to create a sense of progress,” said Leilaz, the economist.

Such decisions also provide a quick win for Iran's reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian with Iran's elite — though it doesn't address any of the longer-term economic problems.

For cars, former President Hassan Rouhani banned imports of fully built foreign vehicles in 2018, after Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the nuclear deal. While in theory protecting Iranian foreign reserves, it also backed up local automobile manufacturers, whose products have long been criticized for not meeting international safety and quality standards — hence their “death wagon” monikers.

Experts believe if Iran's government allowed more lower-priced, higher-quality imports, the country's automobile manufacturers would lose their edge. Restrictions still limit the number of foreign cars that can come into the country and tariffs that Pezeshkian wants lowered may have been again placed at 100%.

“Since the number of newly imported cars is still limited, only a few people can afford them," said Saber, a car dealer in Tehran who spoke on condition only his first name be used to be able to discuss the issue frankly. "As a result, imported cars have skyrocketed in price on the open market.”

What Trump does carries serious consequences for Iran As Iran's economy worsens, its theocracy worries conditions could again push the public back onto the streets in nationwide protests. That's why officials up to Khamenei have backed the idea of talking again to the West.

While Trump has suggested he wants talks, he signed an executive order Feb. 4 calling for putting “Iran’s export of oil to zero,” including to China, which buys Tehran’s crude at a discount. It also seeks a “snapback” of United Nations sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program. If implemented, they could decimate Iran at a time where its people are looking for any sign of optimism.

That includes a car show in Tehran in late January that featured foreign brands like Mazda, Nissan and Toyota, all sought after by Iranians. However, even with the change, Iran's economy still must exist in a world where the US dollar reigns supreme and its rial continues to fall.

“This biggest problem in this country is that everything depends on the dollar," said Saeed Maleki, standing among the vehicles at the show. "Today they tell you a car costs 3 billion rials. But after a week or a month will they still sell this for 3 billion? No! They will charge me with the new rates.”