Gaza’s Hamas-run municipal governments have published their first official reconstruction plan for the Gaza Strip, in the latest sign that the group intends to be a leading actor in the rebuilding of the territory.

In recent days, Hamas has re-emerged as the area’s main governing authority, deploying security forces across the Gaza Strip, despite suffering severe military losses during its 15-month war with Israel.

The 200-page document, titled “Gaza Phoenix” and shared with Sky News by an official in Gaza City’s Hamas-led local government, is the first comprehensive reconstruction plan to be published since the war began.

Gaza Phoenix sets out short, medium and long-term priorities for reconstruction and development in the territory, starting almost from scratch.

The immediate priorities include formalising displacement camps, repairing hospitals, clearing rubble and restoring law and order.

There are also much more ambitious long-term proposals, including a tourism-focused economy, a green belt and even Dubai-style artificial islands.

One section, on “wartime resilience”, suggests constructing “an underground connecter” between all Gaza cities – a proposal likely to anger Israel, which has sought to destroy Hamas’s underground tunnel network.

International donors would be very unlikely to directly fund the activities of Gaza‘s Hamas-led municipal governments, a person familiar with reconstruction efforts told Sky News.

But the project could be delivered by aid groups, the source said, which have historically coordinated with Gaza’s local administrations.

Foreign donors, like the Gulf States, see reconstruction as an opportunity to have influence in post-war Gaza. However, they will have reservations over putting billions of dollars into Gaza’s reconstruction without an internationally agreed and comprehensive plan for stability, as well as assurances of some Palestinian autonomy.

Under the terms of the ceasefire deal, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced from northern Gaza will be allowed to return from Sunday morning.

That makes reconstruction of the north particularly urgent, especially given the higher level of destruction there.

‘If they come, they will not find a place to live’

Dr Mohammad Salha, the director of North Gaza’s last remaining hospital, has not seen his wife and children since the war began.

He has been living in Al Awda Hospital, attempting to keep it running against all odds.

His family are staying in a tent in the south. Whenever it rains, he says, their tent fills with water.

“I want to bring them here, but I don’t know where to put them,” he says. “At least they have a tent. Here, there is nowhere to put a tent.”

Gaza’s government estimates that 14 of every 15 homes have been damaged, leaving the territory littered with an estimated 42 million tonnes of debris.

“If they come, they will not find a place to live,” says Maher Salem, 59, head of planning at Gaza City’s Hamas-led municipal government and a co-author of Gaza Phoenix.

Mr Salem says his team are trying to procure tents and caravans to serve as temporary shelters, and are preparing approximately 20 sites in and around Gaza City.

At least one new tent camp was seen in Gaza City on Thursday.

The reconstruction plan identifies four main zones for larger tent camps, to serve as displacement centres during the reconstruction.

These areas have been chosen because of their proximity to medical centres and relatively low levels of groundwater pollution.

More than 95% of the Gaza Strip has groundwater containing levels of nitrates considered unsafe by the WHO, according to maps published in the document.

Israel has yet to relax import restrictions, hampering reconstruction

The war has also wrought severe damage on Gaza’s water distribution network, with aid groups saying that 70% of water sent through the pipes is currently lost due to leakage.

“We have more than 100,000 metres of pipes that are destroyed, but we haven’t even got 10 metres of pipes for repairs,” says Mr Salem, who also manages water infrastructure in Gaza City.

Israel has so far refused to allow the entry of metal pipes into Gaza, arguing that they could be used to construct rockets.

Similar restrictions on other such “dual use” items have been in place since the war began, and in many cases long before.

Discussions about relaxing these rules post-ceasefire are ongoing, Mr Salem says.

He adds that officials are also trying to secure permission to import heavy machinery, generators and solar panels for the reconstruction effort.

“Everything is in relation to the availability of the materials. If you haven’t the materials, you can’t do the thing.”

Shaina Low, spokesperson for aid organisation Shelter Cluster, says the restrictions are affecting items necessary to build basic shelters, including timber and tent poles.

“There’s so much uncertainty, it makes it very difficult for the humanitarian sector to plan in advance,” she says.

‘Whoever is alive, they will come’

Of particular urgency are repairs to North Gaza’s hospitals. The region now has only one functioning hospital, Al Awda, after repeated raids and attacks by the Israeli military destroyed the Kamal Adwan and Beit Hanoun hospitals, and rendered the Indonesian and Sheikh Hamad hospitals out of service.

Al Awda has also suffered repeated attacks on its staff and buildings.

“A lot of equipment is destroyed,” says Dr Salha, the hospital’s director. “The whole hospital is without windows, without doors, without full ceilings.”

Many of the hospital’s surgeons have been killed or arrested, including Dr Adnan Al Bursh, whose unexplained death in Israeli custody was investigated by Sky News in November.

Despite now only having a single surgeon, Al Awda is preparing for a surge in patient numbers come Sunday, when displaced Palestinians are expected to begin their return to the north.

Dr Salha is also anticipating the arrival of “hundreds, maybe thousands” of wounded or starving people who have been in North Gaza but unable to safely reach the hospital.

“Whoever is alive, they will come,” he says.

A relatively small, private hospital, Al Awda has never had an intensive care unit, an oxygen unit or incubator beds. In the past, Al Awda would refer critical patients and newborns to the nearby Kamal Adwan Hospital.

“Now there is no Kamal Adwan Hospital,” says Dr Salha, “so we will have to do it.”

He has submitted a proposal for the construction of these advanced facilities, but this hinges on the relaxation of import restrictions.

Dr Salha thinks it will take three months before any other hospital in North Gaza is functioning. But Dr Marwan Sultan, the director of the Indonesian Hospital, thinks he can get his hospital up and running within a month.

That too, however, will depend on what he is allowed to import.

“All four generators have been destroyed, along with both oxygen units,” says Dr Sultan.

“These are not available in Gaza, so we have to bring it from outside, but this has not been allowed up till now.”

It will be months before schools can reopen

For those already living in the north of Gaza, the imminent arrival of the returnees poses its own problems.

Ahmed Abu Riziq lives with his wife and three young children in a rented flat in the north of Gaza City. He speaks to us from the building’s roof, which is littered with debris and shrapnel damage.

This week, his landlord is returning and he is being evicted.

He has given up hope of finding another flat. Instead, he is simply trying to find some empty land on which to pitch a tent amidst the rubble.

The destruction of homes in Gaza, and the immense quantities of debris strewn through its streets, has prompted many families to take shelter in schools.

“For more than one year the students have not gone to school, and they haven’t had any chance to go to school because all the schools are used as shelters,” says Mr Salem.

Satellite analysis by aid group Education Cluster suggests that 88% of schools in Gaza have been damaged, including every single school in North Gaza.

Mr Abu Riziq, a schoolteacher, thinks it will take between six to 12 months before schools are able to reopen.

That is echoed in the Gaza Phoenix reconstruction plan, which does not anticipate a resumption of schooling within the next six months.

For the time being, the best scenario for Gaza’s children is to enrol in one of the territory’s growing number of tent schools.

In May last year, Mr Abu Riziq set up his own tent school using the leftover parachute from an aid drop. He has since expanded to five schools, providing education and psychological support to around 2,000 children aged five to 14.

He is optimistic that, with proper support and counselling, Gaza’s children will be able to overcome their traumas.

“Most of our students, when we first tell them to draw, they draw tanks, destroyed houses, how they suffered,” he says.

“But now, after many sessions, they draw gardens, sunflowers, a plane they are in, trees with apples that they can eat. They start to draw their future.”

Additional reporting by Michelle Inez Simon, visual investigations producer, and Olive Enokido-Lineham, OSINT producer.

The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.

A Bulgarian woman charged with being part of a Russian spy cell operating in the UK has denied knowing that information she gathered would be sent to Russia.

Katrin Ivanova, 33, is accused of spying for Russia in a series of elaborate operations in the UK and Europe.

She allegedly targeted a US military base in Germany and secretly filmed two investigative journalists regarded as enemies of the Russian state.

Jurors have heard there was a risk the journalists could be kidnaped or assassinated.

Giving evidence for the first time, Ms Ivanova denied being a spy.

She accepted following people targeted by the operations, and travelling around Europe, but said she did not know the true purpose of the activity.

She said she believed one operation targeting the investigative journalist Christo Grozev was itself a form of journalism and would reveal to the public that he was corrupt.

“The plan was to try and expose Mr Grozev,” she said.

However, no information was ever published and “nothing actually happened”, she said.

She said her then-partner Biser Dzhambazov – whom she told the jury she had trusted with her life – asked her to take part in surveillance operations.

“He has been my partner for over 10 years. Why would he do something that’s going to hurt me,” she said.

The operations were to help Dzhambazov’s friend Orlin Roussev, who assisted the couple financially after they first moved to the UK in 2012, Ms Ivanova told the court.

The couple first met Roussev at East Croydon station in 2012, and went for dinner with him at a “posh” restaurant near the Thames, she said.

“I was very impressed with him,” she said. “He was someone I always wanted to be. He was a typical hero immigrant story.”

Both Dzhambazov and Roussev have already admitted conspiracy to spy for Russia.

Ms Ivanova wiped away tears in the witness box as she described learning how her partner was arrested in bed with the other alleged female spy in this trial, Vanya Gaberova, 30.

Jurors have heard that Dzhambazov and Ms Gaberova were in bed together when the police arrived to arrest them in February 2023.

She said Dzhambazov told her he had a brain tumour and went abroad for treatment. She now believes that was a lie so he could live a “parallel life” with Ms Gaberova.

The trial continues.

Reform UK has topped a national opinion poll for the first time, securing 26 per cent of voter support according to new data from Find Out Now.

The poll of 2,380 British adults puts Nigel Farage’s party three points ahead of Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives at 23 per cent.

Christopher Hope offered his snap reaction to the shock polling

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GB News Political Editor Christopher Hope suggests the poll results could force a dramatic realignment in British politics.

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According to Chopper’s analysis of seat projections, Reform UK would secure 190 MPs, with Labour on 161 and the Conservatives trailing at 141.

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The poll of 2,380 British adults puts Nigel Farage’s party three points ahead of Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives

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“It would basically force the Conservatives and Reform to merge,” Hope said, though he noted Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has previously dismissed such suggestions, questioning “why on Earth” she would merge with a party whose leader vowed to “destroy” the Conservatives.

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Reform UK leader Nigel Farage responded to the poll on social media, declaring: “Reform LEADS for the first time in a national opinion poll. This is just the beginning.”

The party’s chairman Zia Yusuf firmly rejected suggestions of cooperation with the Conservatives, stating: “No pacts, no deals. Reform is headed for Government.”

Reform MP Rupert Lowe expressed confidence in the party’s trajectory, saying: “Reform now in the clear, leading a national opinion poll. I am more confident than ever that we will outright win the next general election.”

Chopper analysed the poll on GB News

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A Conservative spokesman for Kemi Badenoch downplayed the results, telling GB News: “Polls go up and down and change every week. We’re focused on what matters – the damage Labour is doing to the economy, our schools and our international standing.”

Labour dismissed the poll, with a party source saying they were focused on delivering their Plan for Change.

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“While the opposition fight among themselves, the Labour Government is putting in the hard yards to deliver much-needed growth,” the source added.

The poll results come as Ipsos UK found confidence in the country’s direction has fallen to near pre-election levels, with 62 per cent saying the UK is going in the wrong direction.

The survey revealed widespread dissatisfaction with political leaders, with 52 per cent viewing Starmer unfavourably and 50 per cent expressing similar views about Labour.

Reform leader Farage faces his own challenges, with 51 per cent viewing him unfavourably, while 46 per cent hold negative views of Conservative leader Badenoch.

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