Beirut.- The Gaza Strip is in ruins.
There are mountains of rubble where apartment blocks once stood and puddles of water contaminated with disease-spreading sewage. City streets have become dirt canyons and, in many places, the air is filled with the stench of unrecovered corpses.
The Israeli offensive against Hamas, one of the deadliest and most destructive in recent history, has killed more than 41,000 people, a little more than half of them women and children, according to local health officials. With no end in sight to the war, and no plan for the day after, it is impossible to say when—or even if—anything will be rebuilt.
Even after the fighting stops, hundreds of thousands of people could be trapped and living in tent camps for years. Experts say rebuilding could take decades.
“This war is destruction and misery. It would make the stones cry out,” said Shifaa Hejjo, a 60-year-old housewife who lives in a tent set up on the land where her house once stood. “Whoever sees Gaza…it will make him cry.”
Israel blames Hamas for the destruction. The attack by that Palestinian group against Israel on October 7 last year—in which some 1,200 people died and some 250 were taken hostage—caused the war. Israel says Hamas embedded much of its military infrastructure, including hundreds of kilometers (miles) of tunnels, in densely populated areas where some of the toughest battles were fought.
The fighting left about a quarter of all structures in Gaza destroyed or severely damaged, according to a U.N. assessment in September based on satellite videos. It said about 66% of structures, including more than 227,000 housing units, had suffered at least some damage.
If there is a ceasefire, about half of the families “will have nowhere to return,” said Alison Ely, Gaza coordinator for the Shelter Cluster, an international coalition of aid providers led by the Norwegian Refugee Council.
Devastation in Gaza is greater than that of frontline cities in Ukraine
Nearly as many buildings have been destroyed or damaged in Gaza as in all of Ukraine after its first two years of war with Russia, according to Corey Scher and Jamon Van Den Hoek, U.S.-based researchers who use satellite radar to document the devastation of the wars.
To put that in perspective: Gaza is less than half the size of kyiv, the capital of Ukraine.
The amount of destruction in central and southern Gaza alone, Scher said, is roughly equivalent to what was lost in the frontline town of Bakhmut, scene of one of the deadliest battles in the Ukraine war and where forces The Russians destroyed almost all the buildings in their path to force the Ukrainian troops to withdraw. The destruction in northern Gaza is even worse, he added.
Gaza’s water and sanitation system has collapsed. More than 80% of its health facilities – and a larger percentage of its roads – are damaged or destroyed.
“I can’t think of any parallels, in terms of the severity of the damage, for an enclave, a country or a town,” Scher said.
In late January, the World Bank estimated damage at $18.5 billion — nearly the combined economic output of the West Bank and Gaza in 2022. That was before some intensely destructive Israeli ground operations, including in the southern border city. from Rafah.
‘I didn’t know where people’s houses were’
In January, as Israeli ground forces advanced toward the southern city of Khan Younis, Shifaa Hejjo and her family fled their four-story home with only the clothes on their backs.
They spent months in various tent camps before she decided to return. And what she saw made her cry.
His entire neighborhood had been destroyed: his old house and the roads leading to it were sunk in a sea of rubble.
“I didn’t recognize her,” he said. “I didn’t know where people’s houses were.”
About 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced by the war, often multiple times, according to UN estimates. Hundreds of thousands have crowded into sprawling tent camps near the coast without electricity, running water or bathrooms. Hunger is widespread.
Hejjo lived in a tent in the courtyard of a hospital. Before that, he was in Muwasi, the main tent camp in southern Gaza.
“It smelled bad,” he reported. “There were diseases that spread.”
She added that her husband, who suffered from liver disease, was devastated when he heard that their house had been destroyed and died shortly afterwards.
She was one of the first to return after Israeli forces withdrew in April. Their neighbors stayed away, fearful of finding bodies or unexploded bombs.
But for her, it was still home.
“It is better to live in my house, where I lived for 37 years, even if it is destroyed,” he said.
Hejjo and his sons dug through the rubble with shovels and their hands, brick by brick, to salvage anything that could be reused. They used torn clothes to fuel the kitchen fire.
Rats had sneaked in and swarms of mosquitoes hovered over the ruins. There was broken glass everywhere. They set up a tent fortified with corrugated metal sheets and some bricks salvaged from their destroyed home. A light drizzle wet their clothes while they slept.
UN agencies say unemployment has soared to around 80%, compared with almost 50% before the war and that almost the entire population lives in poverty. Even those with the means would find it nearly impossible to import construction materials due to Israeli restrictions, ongoing fighting and the breakdown of law and order.
There are mountains of rubble, little water and no electricity
The first obstacle to any meaningful reconstruction is the rubble: mountains of it.
Where there were once houses, shops and office buildings, there are now huge piles of rubble with human remains, hazardous substances and unexploded ordnance.
The UN estimates that the war has left some 40 million tons of rubble in Gaza, enough to fill New York’s Central Park to a depth of eight meters (about 25 feet). It could take up to 15 years and nearly $650 million to clean it all up, he said.
There’s also the question of where to dispose of them: The UN estimates it would require about five square kilometers (about two square miles) of land, which will be difficult to come by in the small, densely populated territory.
Not only homes were destroyed, but also critical infrastructure.
The UN estimates that almost 70% of Gaza’s water and sanitation plants have been destroyed or damaged. That includes the territory’s five wastewater treatment facilities, plus desalination plants, wastewater pumping stations, wells and reservoirs.
Employees who previously managed municipal water and waste systems have been displaced and some have died. And fuel shortages have made it difficult to maintain facilities that remain intact.
International charity Oxfam said it applied for a permit to bring in desalination units and pipelines to repair water infrastructure in December. It took Israel three months to approve the shipment, which has not yet entered Gaza, Oxfam added.
The destruction of sewage networks has left streets flooded with putrid water, accelerating the spread of disease.
There has been no central power in Gaza since the early days of the war, when its only power plant was forced to close due to lack of fuel, and more than half of the territory’s power grid has been destroyed, according to the World Bank.
Can Gaza be rebuilt?
Wealthy Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have said they are willing to contribute to the reconstruction of Gaza only as part of a postwar deal that creates a path to a Palestinian state.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has ruled out that possibility and said he will not allow Hamas or even the Western-backed Palestinian Authority to rule Gaza. He has reported that Israel will maintain unlimited security control and delegate civil affairs to local Palestinians. But as far as is known, no one has volunteered and Hamas has threatened to kill anyone who helps the occupation.
Rebuilding Gaza would also require the import of massive quantities of construction materials and heavy equipment, something Israel is unlikely to allow as long as there is a chance for Hamas to rebuild its war infrastructure. In any case, Gaza only has a small number of crossings with limited capacity.
The Israeli military body that coordinates civil affairs in Gaza says it does not restrict the entry of civilian supplies and allows so-called dual-use items that could also be used for military purposes. Israel authorized the entry of some construction materials before the war under what was known as the Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism, but they were subject to heavy restrictions and delays.
The Shelter Cluster coalition estimates that it would take 40 years to rebuild all the houses destroyed in Gaza under these conditions.
For now, aid providers are struggling to bring in enough basic tents due to the limited number of trucks entering Gaza and difficulties delivering aid. Efforts to bring in more robust temporary housing are still in the early stages, and no one has attempted to bring in construction materials, according to Ely.
In September, Shelter Cluster estimated that 900,000 people still needed tents, bedding and other items to prepare for the region’s typically cold and rainy winters.
#Gaza #ruins #year #Israeli #offensive