The peace agreement signed in Sharm el-Sheikh on October 13 between Israel and Hamas has rightly been hailed as a watershed moment. After two brutal years of conflict, the deal, brokered with U.S. involvement and publicly endorsed by Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, lays out a phased Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the release of hostages, and the reopening of key border crossings to allow aid and reconstruction. Right now Phase 1 is under way. All hostages have already been returned, and limited aid is moving in. But many restrictions remain, and tensions persist.
This agreement brings a fragile hope: perhaps the guns will fall quiet long enough to begin rebuilding Gaza’s shattered infrastructure. Yet even as diplomats celebrate, a far deeper threat looms, which no peace treaty alone can neutralize: a creeping ecological collapse that could undermine any durable peace.
Gaza’s wounds are not merely political or architectural. This overpopulated coastal strip, crammed between the Mediterranean Sea and the Negev Desert, home to over two million people, is now suffering an environmental emergency accelerated by war. Rising seas, contaminated water, ruined fields: these are not distant forecasts but daily hazards.
Consider how deeply war has amplified climate stresses. In the first 15 months of the conflict, military operations alone likely released about 1.9 million metric tons of CO₂ equivalent, more emissions than many nations output in a year, the equivalent of burning over 800,000 tons of coal. At the same time, all six of Gaza’s wastewater treatment plants were knocked offline. Each day, approximately 130,000 cubic meters of untreated sewage flow into the Mediterranean, fouling marine life and coastal ecosystems.
The agricultural toll has been catastrophic. By August 2025, 91.7 percent of Gaza’s cropland had been damaged or destroyed and 97 percent of its tree crops were lost. Bulldozing, salinity intrusion, and chemical runoff have rendered huge tracts infertile. For ordinary Gazans, these are not statistics, they are existential threats. Families fleeing Khan Younis and Beit Lahia now live in tent camps in Rafah. Clean water is a prize. Diseases like cholera spread in polluted water systems. Children fall sick from brackish well water. Waste piles up under harsh heat.
Nearly 1.9 million people, roughly 90 percent of the population, remain displaced, many more than once. They are squeezed into zones vulnerable to floods, where extreme weather has only grown more intense. This is a humanitarian crisis layered upon an environmental one.
The UN Environment Program warns that by 2050, sea level rise could swamp Gaza’s lowest coastal zones. Gaza’s only freshwater source, a coastal aquifer, is being overdrawn and already tainted by seawater intrusion. Today, 95-97 percent of the water is undrinkable. As winter arrives, forecasts warn of 450–500 millimeters of rain, strong winds, and coastal surges, enough to overwhelm damaged sewage ponds, flood urban zones, and spread disease across a landscape already under immense strain.
These conditions did not emerge randomly. Longstanding restrictions on imports have impeded wastewater rehabilitation, energy infrastructure repair, and resilient agriculture. Airstrikes have shattered solar arrays, dug up pipelines, destroyed irrigation systems. In the West Bank, untreated effluent from settler communities pollutes Palestinian fields. The environmental harm buries political divisions deeper.
Climate change is the amplifier. Droughts become food shortages; storms become disasters. The World Bank warns that unless Gaza gets serious investment in water systems, agriculture, and adaptive infrastructure, its future will be one of recurring crisis—scarce water, failing farms, and mass displacement that fuels instability across the region.
The Sharm agreement rightly emphasizes security, political milestones, and humanitarian aid. But it largely sidesteps environmental renewal. This omission echoes a pattern in peace processes from Sudan to Ukraine: climate and ecology are treated as afterthoughts or external projects. The accord requires disarmament and pledges billions in reconstruction. But it includes no roadmap for sustainable rebuilding.
That gap is dangerous. The debris clearing alone could release tens of thousands of tons of greenhouse gases. Reconstructing 40-61 million tons of rubble might emit an additional 46-60 million tons of CO₂ equivalent. And if rebuilding ignores resilience—if new homes sit on eroding coasts, if agriculture returns without salt-tolerant crops, if water systems are built without buffers—then it will be precarity that is reconstructed.
If peace in Gaza is to endure, it must deliver a “green dividend.” Reconstruction must revive ecology, not further undercut it. Donor nations—the United States, Europe, the Gulf states—should commit substantial funding not just to brick and mortar, but to solar desalination, storm-water capture, water recycling, and coastal defenses. The UAE and Israel have scaled up solar desalination. Gaza, too, could benefit. Mangrove planting, dune reinforcement, and soft coastal defenses could curb erosion while offering jobs. A UN-coordinated resilience fund could finance renewable housing, sustainable agriculture, and distributed water systems. These are not luxuries but insurance policies.
But the design must come from Gaza’s people. Too many reconstruction efforts fail when they ignore local knowledge. Gazan farmers, water engineers, environmentalists must be empowered to drive recovery. Their understanding of soils, aquifers, microclimates, and water reuse is far more granular than any outsider’s.
This participatory approach also promises political dividends. Once the basic systems are rehabilitated, Gaza could begin to engage Israel over water technology, drought-resistant crops, joint coastal management—if the politics permit. Such cooperation would not erase conflict, but it could build functional ties rooted in mutual interests.
Looking back, sustainable peace has always paired security with renewal. After World War II, Europe did not rebuild simply by drawing lines and demobilizing armies. It invested in integrated economies, infrastructure, and environmental resilience. Gaza needs a parallel model where ecological revival is central to reconciliation.
True peace for Gaza will mean more than a border crossing or a release of hostages. It will mean drinkable water, safe homes, functioning farms, fresh air. If those foundations do not hold, the agreement’s promise may fade. The world has pressed pause on violence. Now it must press play on healing the land.