RAND Offers Infrastructure Vision for the People of the West Bank and Gaza
For Release
Tuesday
April 8, 2025
Strategically investing in infrastructure and economic development can catalyze peace and prosperity in the West Bank and Gaza, according to a new RAND report that includes a menu of infrastructure options.
The report, “A Spatial Vision for Palestine: A Long-Term Plan That Can Begin Now,” explores how spatial planning, infrastructure, and resource management could improve the daily lives of Palestinians while supporting longer-term political solutions and economic development. The report also includes maps of proposed changes.
Stakeholder engagement with Palestinians, Israelis, multilateral organizations, and other interested governments informed the report.
Additionally, the report offers proposals to support ongoing negotiations about the future of this region. The menu includes roughly 200 projects throughout the West Bank and Gaza in six sectors: governance, environment, cities, transportation, energy, and water. It also provides specific infrastructure plans for six locations: Nablus, Jericho, Hebron, Gaza City, North Jordan Valley, and East Jerusalem.
“Achieving a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will require overcoming daunting challenges in security, governance, logistics, and financing. It also requires providing a vision of a better future, where all people of the region can live in normalcy—with access to basic services, utilities, and quality infrastructure. All of this is achievable with political will, good-faith negotiations, strategic planning, and international support,” said RAND coauthor Shelly Culbertson.
The sectors addressed by this research include:
- Governance—includes decisionmaking authority over infrastructure planning, considerations of jurisdiction, administrative oversight, security, borders, and land ownership.
- Environment—delivering clean water and land. It includes environmentally sound watershed management and solid waste management, as well as mitigation of rubble and unexploded ordnance in Gaza.
- Cities—capacity to absorb expected population growth, as well as the health of economic infrastructure and civic institutions.
- Transportation—includes heavy and light rail, improved road networks, an airport, and maritime ports. As planned, the transportation sector would ease connection within the West Bank and Gaza and with neighboring countries for travel and trade.
- Water—includes sustainable water sources, wastewater infrastructure, and delivery methods.
- Energy—describes energy sources, distribution, and financial sustainability.
The report proposes efforts that could begin in the immediate future in the West Bank, even without a solution to the Hamas-Israel conflict, and in Gaza after an end to the war and when recovery and reconstruction start. Proposals include bold options that the region's leaders could consider for the long term. In parallel with improving security and governance, infrastructure can be addressed simultaneously by the international community. The proposals were developed with the goal of achieving win-win solutions for both Palestinians and Israelis.
“This plan is based on today's realities and focuses on real solutions, many of which we believe can gain the support of both Palestinians and Israelis. They improve the lives of Palestinians and protect the region's environment, deal with common problems in water management and sanitation, and enhance security,” said RAND coauthor C. Ross Anthony.
The report's menu is flexible and relevant to a wide range of political solutions. It is compatible with development of a future independent Palestinian state, with projects adding up over time to the essential infrastructure of a state. Projects with demonstrated need, political agreement, and financing could begin now.
The report's approach to building in the West Bank and reconstruction in Gaza rests on a set of interlinked projects with a series of practical steps. These can collectively and incrementally drive the region toward achieving an ambitious vision.
The report does not prioritize projects. However, based on interviews with stakeholders, the coauthors are confident a subset of projects will interest multiple parties and could move forward in the short term. This document can be used as a basis for negotiations with Palestinian, Israeli, and global stakeholders to establish priorities.
The research project team included RAND researchers, as well as urban planners from ORG Permanent Modernity, Plan+Process, and the Center for Engineering and Planning.
The project was conceived of and sponsored by a consortium of prominent Palestinian private sector businesses, contracted through CCC Construction. Funding for this research was also provided by gifts from RAND supporters and income from operations.
RAND has been working on infrastructure planning in the West Bank and Gaza for 20 years. This report builds on RAND's widely cited 2005 report, “The Arc: A Formal Structure for a Palestinian State.”
It is one of three 2025 RAND research reports focused on post-conflict planning for Palestinians. It follows recent publication of “Pathways to a Durable Israeli-Palestinian Peace” and “From Camps to Communities: Post-Conflict Shelter in Gaza.”
