GAZA (Dispatches) – Rebuilding homes and infrastructure after the Zionist regime’s 15-month war on Gaza could take 40 years and cost more than $80 billion, aid agencies say.
The war has transformed the enclave into a rubble-strewn wasteland with blackened shells of buildings and mounds of debris. Major roads have been plowed up. Critical water and electricity infrastructure is in ruins. Most hospitals no longer function.
The full extent of the damage will be known only when the fighting ends on Sunday and inspectors have full access. The most heavily destroyed part of Gaza, in the north, has been sealed off and largely depopulated by Zionist troops in an operation that began last October.
Using satellite data, the UN estimates that 70 percent of structures in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, including over 245,000 homes.
Before anything can be rebuilt, the rubble must be removed — a staggering task in itself.
The war has littered Gaza with over 50 million tons of rubble, about 12 times the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza. With over 100 trucks working full time, it would take 15 years to clear.
“I can’t think of any parallel, in terms of the severity of damage, for an enclave or a country or a people,” said Corey Scher of the Shelter Cluster, an international coalition of aid providers led by the Norwegian Refugee Council.
The first target for aid is the health sector, with more than 80 percent of Gaza’s health facilities damaged or destroyed.
The World Health Organization said on Friday it would start by bringing prefabricated hospitals into the enclave and medically evacuating over 12,000 patients, a third of them children.
The head of the largest aid agency for Palestinians also warned that the full implementation of a new Israeli law preventing its workers from operating within the country would be “catastrophic” for Gaza, “massively” weaken the international humanitarian response there, and make already “dire and catastrophic” living conditions “immeasurably” worse.
It would also undermine the Gaza ceasefire agreement, said Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner general of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees.
He was speaking in New York where he earlier briefed the UN Security Council on the plight of the UNRWA, less than two weeks before the Israeli ban on the agency is due to take effect.
Lazzarini welcomed the recent ceasefire agreement and hostage-release deal in Gaza as a “starting point,” and stressed the “absolute” need for “rapid, unfettered” access for humanitarians to respond to the “tremendous suffering” in the territory.
On the other hand, the Zionist regime has also suffered losses of $67 billion as a result of its genocidal war on Gaza, it has revealed. These losses include $34 billion in direct military losses and $40 billion in losses to the general budget, the largest in the history of the occupation.
Some 60,000 companies also closed their doors over the past year, 50 percent more compared to 2023, while the number of tourists decreased by 70 percent, causing losses exceeding $5 billion for the tourism sector. In addition, the construction sector lost $4 billion, and more than 70 companies in this sector closed their doors.
Data showed that a third of the population of the Israeli occupation lives below the poverty line, while a quarter of the population suffers from food insecurity.
The disclosure of these figures came hours before a ceasefire agreement was reached with Gaza.