05/03/2024May 3, 2024
UN says Gaza destruction on a scale ‘not seen since World War II’
A report released by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) estimated that fully rebuilding Gaza could take decades.
“The scale of the destruction is huge and unprecedented… this is a mission that the global community has not dealt with since World War II,” Abdallah al-Dardari, the UNDP’s Regional Director for Arab States told a briefing in Jordan.
In the best-case scenario, in which the war would end today and construction materials would be delivered five times as fast as following the last crisis in 2021, rebuilding efforts could be completed by 2040.
However, assuming the pace of reconstruction follows the trend of several previous Gaza conflicts, the UNDP report said it would take “approximately 80 years to restore all the fully destroyed housing units.”
At least 370,000 housing units in Gaza have been damaged, including 79,000 that have been destroyed completely, the report said.
In 2014, after 51 days of fighting between Israel and Hamas, there were 2.4 million tons of debris in Gaza, Al Dardari said.
In the current conflict, there are already 37 million tons of debris that need to be cleared to make space for temporary shelters and other structures, he added.
The rough estimate for the cost of the overall reconstruction of Gaza is between $40 billion and $50 billion, he said.
Israel to after the militant group carried out terror attacks that killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel on October 7. Since then, more than 34,000 people in Gaza have been killed in the retaliatory offensive, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry.
wmr/sms (AP, AFP, dpa, Reuters)
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