Almost a full year into the war, and after months of failed cease-fire negotiations, Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza has resulted in more than 40,000 dead, including at least 16,500 children, destroyed most of its civilian infrastructure, and uprooted 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million inhabitants but has so far failed to achieve its stated goal of eliminating Hamas.
Although Hamas is likely to survive the onslaught, the future of the Gaza Strip the “day after” the war ends remains highly uncertain. What is Israel’s endgame for Gaza? And how does this align with the needs of ordinary Palestinians and the expectations of the broader international community? Will Gaza even be inhabitable after the war? If so, what will be needed to address the massive humanitarian, infrastructural, economic, security, and governance needs of the population?
To address these and other questions about the future of Gaza, the Middle East Institute (MEI) is pleased to invite you to join a virtual panel discussion.
Speakers
Tahani Mustafa
Senior Analyst for Palestine, International Crisis Group
Joe Saba
Chairman of the Board of Directors, Anera;
Former Country Director for the West Bank and Gaza Strip, World Bank
Mohammed Samhouri
Palestinian Economist and Academic;
Former Senior Economic Advisor, Palestinian Authority
Muhammed Shehadeh
Chief of Programs and Communications, Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor
Khaled Elgindy (Moderator)
Senior Fellow, Director of Program on Palestine and Palestinian-Israeli Affairs, Middle East Institute
Extended Speaker Biographies
Dr. Tahani Mustafa is the senior Palestine analyst at the International Crisis Group. She has a background in development and security governance in the Middle East, and has worked in academia and policy advocacy. Based between the UK, Jordan and Israel/Palestine, she holds a Ph.D in Politics and International Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.
Joe Saba serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA), a non-profit providing humanitarian and development assistance to the forcibly displaced, their hosts, and other vulnerable communities. He also advises the World Bank on strategies and operations for assistance to countries facing conflict, displacement, and fiscal distress. Over the past few years, Joe has led several program evaluations of international assistance for the World Bank, the European Union, Denmark, and the UN, including multinational trust fund operations in Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, South Sudan, and Palestine. He previously served as Country Director for West Bank and Gaza and then Regional Director for the Middle East at the World Bank, leading programs in the Mashreq (Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, West Bank/Gaza, and the GCC states). He is an Adjunct Professor at Loyola University Chicago Law School, where he designed and teaches a course on rule of law for development at Loyola’s PROLAW program in Rome, Italy.
Dr. Mohammed Samhouri is a Gaza-born Palestinian economist. He is a former senior economic advisor in the Palestinian Authority and a former senior teaching and research fellow at Brandeis University’s Crown Center for Middle East Studies. In 2005, he led a team of 40 Palestinian technical experts to prepare Gaza for the day after Israeli disengagement. He is the author of the 2017 UNDP-commissioned report “Beyond Survival: Challenges to Economic Recovery and Long-Term Development in the Gaza Strip”.
Muhammed Shehadeh is a Palestinian writer and analyst based in Copenhagen, where he also serves as chief of programs and communications at Euro-Med Monitor, an independent, youth-led nonprofit organization that advocates for human rights of across Europe and the MENA region. He has been a contributing writer to Newsweek, the Forward, the New Arab and numerous other publications.
Khaled Elgindy is a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute where he also directs MEI’s Program on Palestine and Israeli-Palestinian Affairs. He is the author of the newly-released book, Blind Spot: America and the Palestinians, from Balfour to Trump, published by Brookings Institution Press in April 2019. Elgindy previously served as a fellow in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution from 2010 through 2018. Prior to arriving at Brookings, he served as an adviser to the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah on permanent status negotiations with Israel from 2004 to 2009, and was a key participant in the Annapolis negotiations of 2007-08. Elgindy is also an adjunct instructor in Arab Studies at Georgetown University. Khaled’s writings have appeared in a wide range of publications, including The Christian Science Monitor, CNN.com, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Los Angeles Times, The National Interest, The Washington Quarterly, and others. He is frequently quoted in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Hill, Politico, and other print media, and is a regular commentator on TV and radio, including Aljazeera, BBC, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, NPR, PBS Newshour and others.
(Photo by Omar El Qattaa/Anadolu via Getty Images)