Gaza Stars: turning survival into a new beginning for Gaza's entrepreneurs

When Wafaa Zaher opened Future Magic in 2013, it was a small physiotherapy and massage centre serving her local community in Gaza City. Over the following decade, it grew into a trusted practice, the kind of everyday business that quietly holds a community together. Then, in 2023, war reached her doorstep.

"My project was established in 2013, and we used to offer physical therapy and massage sessions until the war came in 2023 and we were forced to be displaced," Wafaa says. "A large part of the centre was destroyed."

Wafaa and her family were forced to flee. Today, she is one of 300 entrepreneurs taking the first step towards rebuilding their livelihoods through Gaza Stars, a new programme we've launched in strategic partnership with the Abdulaziz Al Ghurair Refugee Education Fund.

Why Gaza Stars now?

Two years of war have devastated Gaza's economy. An estimated 70% of small and medium-sized businesses have been destroyed. Around 80% of the population has been displaced. Youth unemployment stands at close to 75%. Behind every one of these figures is a person, a family, and a livelihood that has been lost.

But we also know something else: Gaza's entrepreneurs are not waiting to be rescued. They are ready to rebuild. In our own surveys, 70% of young entrepreneurs told us they are ready to restart their businesses if given the right support. 60% already have new ideas, shaped by the realities of the world they're now living in.

What Gaza Stars does

Gaza Stars supports 300 young people across two tracks, each designed around what participants actually need right now.

Our Recovery Track works with 150 entrepreneurs whose businesses existed before the war, like Wafaa's. Through an intensive bootcamp, one-to-one mentoring and hands-on support with everything from financial restructuring to digital tools, we help business owners get back on their feet and re-enter local markets.

Our Innovation Track supports 150 young people, many of them displaced, many of them women, who are building entirely new businesses in response to the realities of post-war Gaza, from remote work and digital freelancing to services their communities urgently need.

Both tracks lead to a final pitch competition, where the strongest teams receive seed funding to launch or relaunch their businesses. In total, $36,000 will be awarded across both tracks, alongside continued mentorship to help winners grow.

This isn't just training. It's an investment in people who have already proven, against extraordinary odds, that they have the drive to rebuild.

Locally led, built for Gaza's reality

Everything about Gaza Stars is designed by and for the community it serves. Our trainers and facilitators are Palestinian. Our outreach is community-led. And because we know what daily life in Gaza actually looks like, our programme is built to keep running through it, with offline training materials, solar-powered hubs to work around power outages, and flexible schedules that adapt around movement restrictions.

We've also built psychosocial support directly into our training, because we know that rebuilding a business after this kind of loss is not just a technical challenge. It's an emotional one too. At least 40% of our participants are women, and we've made a deliberate commitment to include displaced people and people with disabilities at every stage.

What success looks like

In the next six months alone, we expect to directly support more than 300 entrepreneurs, help 150 existing businesses get back to work, and fund ten standout startups to grow further, with ripple effects reaching more than 500 people in participants' households and communities.

Looking further ahead, we believe programmes like this can help create 200 to 250 jobs within the next year and a half, grow Gaza's digital economy, and lay the groundwork for a private sector that can stand on its own, reducing reliance on aid over time rather than simply responding to crisis.

"Every success starts with a step"

For Wafaa, the reasons for joining are simple and personal. She's taking part in Gaza Stars, she says, "to try to restore the centre and resume offering services, especially given the effects of the current post-war situation." These are services that matter more than ever to a community carrying the weight of what it has been through.

As we welcome our first cohort, our message to them, and to everyone still weighing whether to take that first step, is the same one we opened this programme with:

"Take part, give it a go, and don't be afraid. Every successful project starts with an idea, and every great success starts with a single step."

Support the next generation of Gaza's entrepreneurs

Gaza Stars is only possible because of partners who believe that recovery must be locally led. If you'd like to learn more about the programme, follow our progress, or explore how your organisation can support the next cohort, get in touch with the GlocalShift team at Media@glocalshift.eu