Analysis
The race to profit off the hunger and ruin of Gaza
Before any reconstruction takes place, this is what Washington is set to inherit: control over an entire economy built on hunger.
Businessmen, builders, fixers and speculators have descended on Gaza like birds of prey – from the United States to Egypt, always going through Israel. There is money to be made on the hunger of Palestinians, and while bombs were destroying dozens of homes and families every day, at the court of President Donald Trump they were already contending for a slice of the pie. According to a United Nations estimate, rebuilding what Israel has destroyed is a business worth $70 billion.
At this point, the most well-known companies involved are those owned by entrepreneurs linked to the Republican Party. A notable one is Gothams LLC, known for managing the infamous migrant detention center nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz” in southern Florida, where people live in tents and containers. Gothams LLC won a $33 million contract for managing the prison and now, according to an investigation by the British daily The Guardian, has presented its “logistical” proposal for Gaza to the “Peace Council.”
The leader of the company, Matt Michelsen, is a Republican who financially supported the electoral campaign of conservative Texas Governor Greg Abbott. His company is a part of the flourishing American market of “disaster businesses” and has recently secured a number of major government contracts. Reached by The Guardian, Michelsen said he was disturbed by journalists’ questions and that he’d reconsidered taking part in commercial activities in the Strip, fearing bad publicity.
But the Gothams proposal is not the only one being looked at. According to the British newspaper, those who are managing the consultations on demolition, transport and construction projects are two former officials from DOGE – the body (now dismantled) set up by Trump and led by billionaire Elon Musk with the aim of cutting U.S. public spending. These two former employees, having replaced the mantra of cost savings with the one of profit management, have circulated detailed plans and financial projections.
According to information uncovered by the British journalists, various contractors have traveled to the Middle East to take part in talks with important U.S. officials. Everyone is waiting for President Trump to officially announce the establishment of the “Peace Council,” the entity that he will preside over and that will control the Strip. The activity of the two former officials – who have also been dispatched to the Middle East – seems to have increased considerably in recent weeks.
Sources describe the younger among them, 25-year-old Adam Hoffman, as the driving force behind the recently developed plans. A conservative political activist since his teenage years, Hoffman likewise worked to support the candidacy of Republican Texas Governor Abbott, for whom he worked as a volunteer before becoming an assistant to billionaire Ken Griffin.
The “atypical American Jewish teenager” – as the Jewish Telegraphic Agency called him in his youth – today seems to have planned a new “logistical architecture of the Gaza supply system.” Hoffman’s idea, according to The Guardian, is to assign the contract for managing humanitarian and commercial trucks entering Gaza to a “Master contractor” – a sort of intermediary company that would earn money from taxes applied to cargoes: $2,000 for a humanitarian truck and $12,000 for a commercial one. With 600 trucks daily, the company would pocket $1.7 billion a year.
This arrangement would certainly be nothing new: this type of contractor rule has existed since before October 2023. But the system of making a profit from the management of cargo entering Gaza has been implemented in the last two years, and has even reinvented itself according to the phases of the war, causing a dizzying increase in prices inside the famine-stricken Strip. The profit obtained from what the Egyptian news site Mada Masr calls the “coordination of goods” is enormous. And all of it is extracted in a monopoly regime. On the Egyptian side, according to the Arab magazine, management has been fully entrusted to the company Sons of Sinai, owned by businessman Ibrahim al-Organi. Sons of Sinai is just one of the companies that are part of the Organi Group. The businessman, with ties to Egyptian President al-Sisi, also controls the company Hala, known for charging absolutely outrageous costs – again in a monopoly regime – to Palestinians trying to flee the bombs of Gaza and take refuge in Egypt.
On every truck, Sons of Sinai imposes a tax ranging from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars, depending on the phase of the war and the type of goods (humanitarian or commercial). Once they enter the Strip, the goods are distributed to sales points by a limited number of Palestinian companies chosen by Israel, which charge additional taxes to merchants.
But the so-called “Egyptian line” is not the only one making a profit from the hunger caused by the Tel Aviv blockade. The “Israeli line” control the crossings of the Jewish state through the company Three Brothers owned by Mohamed al-Khazendar, a Palestinian businessman living in Egypt. According to the reconstruction by Mada Masr, Khazendar – who is on good terms with Tel Aviv – was the only Palestinian entrepreneur who agreed to work with the Israeli-American Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
According to data from the Chamber of Commerce, in recent months the average “coordination” costs for a truck of frozen chicken have been about $80,000, to which one must add security and transport expenses. In two years, the costs of coordinating the entry of goods into the Strip have exceeded $1 billion. Before any reconstruction takes place, this is what Washington is set to inherit: control over an entire economy built on hunger.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/la-corsa-a-far-soldi-su-fame-e-rovine-dei-gazawi on 2025-12-18