On Tuesday, the first supplies of building materials for the reconstruction of Gaza entered the Strip as part of an agreement between Israel, the Palestinian Authority (and Hamas), and the United Nations. The ambitious and closely monitored program to rehabilitate the Strip has begun

According to this plan, reconstruction may take years — possibly even a decade. For now, not much has changed in the Palestinian enclave, and nothing significant is likely to change any time soon.

Things are as they were: Poverty, desperation, extremism and tens of thousands of displaced people. The sea is the same sea, and Hamas is the same Hamas, with the same aspirations.

There is one major difference, though: Hamas is poorer. Without the income from the Gaza-Egypt tunnels, and having stopped collecting taxes, its funds are dwindling. While the PA will oversee the actual reconstruction of the Strip, Hamas’s top priority is the reestablishment of its internal infrastructure — including its financial infrastructure.

This will be no simple task. While the group is not bankrupt yet, it is in the midst of a budgetary crisis, and is forced to beg for funds from the Arab world. At present, to some degree, this strategy is working. Hamas is managing to pay the salaries of members of its military wing thanks largely to donations from Qatar, Turkey and businessmen from the Gulf States, funneled into the Strip via the handful of Egypt-Gaza tunnels still functioning. (The UN has established a mechanism to pay the salaries of Hamas civil servants via donations.)

Hamas’s financial plight stems in part from it being sidelined when it comes to the reconstruction of Gaza. It wasn’t only Israel that was excluded from the “Rehabilitation of Gaza” conference in Cairo on Sunday; Hamas representatives were also absent. Only the Palestinian Authority sent a delegation, according to the instructions of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi.

Read the article in full at Times of Israel.