‘Gaza Will Take 20 Years to Rebuild’
AL-QUDS (Dispatches) -- An international organization involved in assessing post-conflict reconstruction says it will take 20 years for Gaza's battered and neglected housing stock to be rebuilt following the recent aggression by the occupying regime of Israel.
The assessment by Shelter Cluster, co-chaired by the UN refugee agency and the Red Cross, underscores the complexities involved in an overall reconstruction program for the Gaza Strip, which some Palestinian officials have estimated could cost in excess of $6 billion.
Any effort to rebuild Gaza will be hindered by a blockade imposed by Egypt and the Zionist regime. Israel has severely restricted the import of concrete and other building materials into Gaza
With a population of 1.8 million, Gaza is a densely populated coastal strip of urban warrens and agricultural land that still bears the scars of previous rounds of fighting.
In its report issued late Friday, Shelter Cluster said 17,000 Gaza housing units were destroyed or severely damaged during this summer's war and 5,000 units still need work after damage sustained in the previous military campaigns. In addition, it says, Gaza has a housing deficit of 75,000 units.
Shelter Cluster said its 20-year assessment is based on the capacity of the main Israel-Gaza cargo crossing to handle 100 trucks of construction materials daily.
Over 2,100 Palestinians, most civilians, died in the war. The occupying regime of Israel lost 71 people, all but six of them soldiers.
The Zionist regime has been presented with a hefty bill for 50 days of war in Gaza, as its prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, moved to slash spending by 2% this year to offset the $2.52 billion cost of the conflict.
With only the Zionist military and domestic intelligence agency Shin Bet exempt from the sharp spending reductions, the area to be hit hardest emerged as the regime’s education system, with critics – including members of Netanyahu's cabinet – predicting that the poorest Zionists will feel the brunt of the cuts.
Among those protesting was the welfare minister, Meir Cohen, who insisted there was no more fat in his budget to trim.
"From whom will we take? From those who have nothing to put in their children's sandwiches for school?" he complained on Israeli army radio.
Amid estimates by some economic observers that the war may have cost Israel a decline of 0.5% in its growth in GDP, Netanyahu defended the stringent across-the-board cuts before a cabinet meeting.
The proposed emergency budget reductions, amounting to about $561m, will help fund a sharp hike in the budget of Israel's armed forces and Shin Bet amid estimates that the latest round of fighting in Gaza cost the Zionist regime $50 million for each day of the war.
The occupying regime’s budget for this year – even before the war and the latest proposed cuts – had already heralded a bout of belt-tightening that had seen a fierce fight over spending cuts, later reversed, to the Israeli military forces.
The Israeli budget cuts come amid evidence that the occupying regime’s economy – which had already been slowing to a sluggish 1.7% growth in the second quarter of this year, including the key hi-tech sector – had been hard hit by the weeks of conflict, not least tourism.
Any effort to rebuild Gaza will be hindered by a blockade imposed by Egypt and the Zionist regime. Israel has severely restricted the import of concrete and other building materials into Gaza
With a population of 1.8 million, Gaza is a densely populated coastal strip of urban warrens and agricultural land that still bears the scars of previous rounds of fighting.
In its report issued late Friday, Shelter Cluster said 17,000 Gaza housing units were destroyed or severely damaged during this summer's war and 5,000 units still need work after damage sustained in the previous military campaigns. In addition, it says, Gaza has a housing deficit of 75,000 units.
Shelter Cluster said its 20-year assessment is based on the capacity of the main Israel-Gaza cargo crossing to handle 100 trucks of construction materials daily.
Over 2,100 Palestinians, most civilians, died in the war. The occupying regime of Israel lost 71 people, all but six of them soldiers.
The Zionist regime has been presented with a hefty bill for 50 days of war in Gaza, as its prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, moved to slash spending by 2% this year to offset the $2.52 billion cost of the conflict.
With only the Zionist military and domestic intelligence agency Shin Bet exempt from the sharp spending reductions, the area to be hit hardest emerged as the regime’s education system, with critics – including members of Netanyahu's cabinet – predicting that the poorest Zionists will feel the brunt of the cuts.
Among those protesting was the welfare minister, Meir Cohen, who insisted there was no more fat in his budget to trim.
"From whom will we take? From those who have nothing to put in their children's sandwiches for school?" he complained on Israeli army radio.
Amid estimates by some economic observers that the war may have cost Israel a decline of 0.5% in its growth in GDP, Netanyahu defended the stringent across-the-board cuts before a cabinet meeting.
The proposed emergency budget reductions, amounting to about $561m, will help fund a sharp hike in the budget of Israel's armed forces and Shin Bet amid estimates that the latest round of fighting in Gaza cost the Zionist regime $50 million for each day of the war.
The occupying regime’s budget for this year – even before the war and the latest proposed cuts – had already heralded a bout of belt-tightening that had seen a fierce fight over spending cuts, later reversed, to the Israeli military forces.
The Israeli budget cuts come amid evidence that the occupying regime’s economy – which had already been slowing to a sluggish 1.7% growth in the second quarter of this year, including the key hi-tech sector – had been hard hit by the weeks of conflict, not least tourism.