IMF, World Bank members look at Gaza reconstruction, challenges ahead

18/10/2025 6:29

Top finance officials from around the world this week underscored their willingness to help rebuild the Palestinian enclave of Gaza as the World Bank and United Nations worked to finalize a new cost estimate of $70 billion.



Members of the ministerial-level Development Committee that advises the World Bank and International Monetary Fund discussed the challenges involved during a meeting on Thursday, World Trade Organization Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said.



"We're all very, very appreciative that there's a ceasefire and that the killing has stopped, that hostages have been brought home, that Palestinians can get food," Okonjo-Iweala said. "We hope that it will just lead to the next phase and that that will happen peacefully."



A U.S.-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas militants has halted two years of devastating war, but U.N. officials say aid convoys are struggling to reach famine-hit areas of north Gaza due to war-damaged roads and the closure of key routes.