Money isn't the problem right now for the 32 members of the Yassin clan who lost their four homes during Israel's war on Gaza. The family rented apartments and filled them with basics, using some of its $35,000 in emergency aid from Hamas and the United Nations.

And judging by $5.2 billion pledged at last week's international conference on aid for Gaza, the world is eager to help.

But no one, from aid groups to governments, has offered an answer to the Yassins' most pressing question: When can they, and tens of thousands of others, begin rebuilding?

Not until Israel and Egypt allow in huge amounts of cement, steel and other building supplies _ lifting the border blockade they imposed in response to Hamas' violent takeover of Gaza in June 2007.

This could take weeks or months and perhaps not happen at all.

Israel's government is in transition, with Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu still struggling to form a coalition government. He has called for toppling Hamas, and may be reluctant to allow unfettered access that could boost the Islamic militants.

The outgoing government has only allowed humanitarian aid, much of it food, into Gaza since it ended its three-week offensive Jan. 18. It argues that building supplies and other goods could benefit Hamas.

Meanwhile, Gaza militants keep firing rockets at Israeli towns, and Israeli aircraft target rocket squads and the smuggling tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border that bring in not only consumer goods, but also weapons and cash for Hamas.

Israel has linked an opening of borders to a cease-fire deal with Hamas and the release of a Hamas-held Israeli soldier in a prisoner swap. Egypt wants Hamas to reconcile with its rival, moderate Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, before it opens its border crossing with Gaza.

Much depends on how hard the U.S. pushes for easing the blockade.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton suggests Israel could do better.

"We have obviously expressed concerns about the border crossings," she said of her March 3 meeting with outgoing Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak. "We want humanitarian aid to get into Gaza in sufficient amounts to be able to alleviate the suffering of the people in Gaza."

But Clinton remained vague on the key point _ whether aid means more than food, kitchen utensils and clothes.

The U.N. says immediate needs are to remove 600,000 tons of rubble and fix roads, sewage pipes, electricity cables and water lines, as well as rebuild some 15,000 houses and 700 businesses.

"If you want to do the job quickly and want to do the job correctly, then we have to have unhindered access of materials coming in," said Jens Toyberg-Frandzen, head of the U.N. Development Program in the Palestinian territories.

It would mean jobs for tens of thousands of Gazans in the first phase of reconstruction alone, according to a group of Gaza entrepreneurs who made their pitch for open borders at the donor conference.

Jobs were scarce even before the war, because the blockade forced most manufacturers out of business. Huge construction projects, such as a foreign-funded $150 million housing complex with some 9,000 apartments in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, were frozen after the borders closed in 2007.

"We are in need of pressure from the world, the civilized world, on Israel to open these crossings," said Mahmoud Abu Shahla, a Gaza business leader.

However, while donors promised almost twice the $2.8 billion in aid requested by Abbas, they offered no practical plan for starting reconstruction if borders remain closed. Instead, they appear to be waiting for two long-shot developments to untangle the Gaza knot: a cease-fire and a power-sharing agreement between Hamas and Abbas.

Dore Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the U.N., who is close to Netanyahu, said the Israeli leader will order a review of policy, including the Gaza blockade, once he has formed his government. Gold said Israel would want to make sure that Hamas does not benefit from reconstruction.

He compared the Gaza offensive to Israel's 2006 war with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

"Hezbollah used the reconstruction of Lebanon to re-establish its influence in the Shiite community," he said.

The Israelis haven't explained why so many homes were destroyed in Gaza's border areas, but in general they have maintained that Hamas fighters were firing rockets from crowded neighborhoods, making civilian casualties and damage inevitable.

When the Yassins returned to their devastated Zeitoun neighborhood in Gaza City after the war, they found three of their homes leveled and the fourth badly damaged.

Rabbah Yassin, the clan's main breadwinner, is eager to repair his home. The house is still standing, but the walls were heavily damaged by shells and bullets. Israeli soldiers who camped out inside smashed glass, plates and furniture.

The 46-year-old carpenter would also like to revive his workshop, idled for months by lack of wood, nails and hinges.

But he knows it could take months for Israelis and Palestinians to get their internal politics sorted out and for the borders to open.

"It's nothing you can change overnight," he said.

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