What was claimed
The UK has pledged £40 billion to rebuild Gaza.
Our verdict
False. This appears to be an estimate of the total cost of reconstruction. There’s no evidence the UK has committed, or plans to commit, this amount.
The UK has not pledged £40 billion for Gaza reconstruction
Multiple posts on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) wrongly claim that the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has pledged to give £40 billion to Gaza to help pay for its reconstruction.
These posts are incorrect. The £40 billion figure appears to actually be an estimate of the overall cost of rebuilding Gaza, which will not be solely funded by the UK.
One Facebook post says: “The country is 2.9 trillion in debt and Starmer pledges 40 billion to Gaza.” Another says: “The UK government is set to hand over up to £40 billion in aid as a starter to help rebuild Gaza. Yet we are 2.9 Trillion in debt.”
We’ve found no evidence that the UK has committed, or plans to commit, £40 billion in aid or other support for reconstruction in Gaza, and a spokesperson from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office confirmed the figure was incorrect. The UK is set to host a three-day conference to coordinate efforts to rebuild the territory and will reportedly facilitate talks between the Palestinian authorities and private finance firms to secure reconstruction funds.
The figure of £40 billion instead likely comes from a World Bank assessment of the cost of rebuilding Gaza which was published in February 2025. This estimated the recovery and reconstruction needs of the area to be $53 billion—roughly the equivalent of £40 billion. This figure, which was also used in a plan for Gaza’s reconstruction presented by Egypt earlier this year, has been widely reported in the media.
A government press release this week announced a £20 million humanitarian aid package as part of a broader £116 million the UK has committed to Palestine this year.
It is true, as several of the Facebook posts claim, that the UK’s public sector net debt is forecast to be approximately £2.9 trillion in 2025/26.
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This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as partly false because the £40 billion figure appears to be an estimate of the cost of rebuilding Gaza, not the amount being given by the UK.