Hundreds of thousands of people are crammed into miserable camps, with no homes to return to, even if there is a ceasefire. It could take years to clear the mountains of rubble alone, filled with human remains, unexploded ordnance and other hazardous materials.
The fighting resulted in the destruction or serious damage of about a quarter of the buildings in Gaza, according to a report issued by the United Nations last September, based on satellite footage.
The report said that about 66% of buildings, including more than 227,000 housing units, suffered at least some damage, according to the Associated Press.
Millions of tons of rubble
Above the ruins of his once two-story home, 11-year-old Muhammad Jihad Shamali collects pieces of the fallen roof in a broken bucket and crushes them into gravel that his father will use to make gravestones for victims of the Gaza war, according to a Reuters report.
His father, Jihad, a 42-year-old former construction worker, said while he was cutting metal he had recovered from their home in the city of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, which was damaged during an Israeli raid in April, “In Najib al-Dabash, it is not for sand in which to build houses, no, for the court of the martyrs.” Tombstones) and for cemeteries, meaning from tragedy to tragedy.”
Dealing with debris
The work is hard, and sometimes depressing. In March, the Shamali family built a grave for one of their sons, Ismail, who was killed while performing household tasks.
But this also constitutes a small part of efforts that are beginning to take shape to deal with the ruins left by the Israeli military campaign to eliminate Hamas.
The United Nations estimates that there are more than 42 million tons of rubble, including destroyed buildings still standing and collapsed buildings.
The United Nations said that this is equivalent to 14 times the amount of rubble accumulated in Gaza between 2008 and the beginning of the war a year ago, and more than 5 times the amount left behind by the Battle of Mosul in Iraq between 2016 and 2017.
If this quantity accumulates, it could fill the Great Pyramid of Giza, the largest of the pyramids in Egypt, 11 times… and it is increasing daily.
Three United Nations officials said that the international organization is trying to provide assistance while the authorities in the Gaza Strip are studying how to deal with the rubble.
A UN-led debris management working group plans to start a pilot project with the Palestinian authorities in Khan Yunis and the city of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip to begin removing debris from roadsides this month.
“The challenges are huge,” said Alessandro Mrakić, head of the UNDP office in Gaza and co-chair of the working group. “It will be a huge process, but at the same time, it is important that we start now.”
In response to a question about the debris, the Israeli government coordination unit in the territories said it aims to improve waste handling and will work with the United Nations to expand these efforts.
Tents amid the rubble
Israel began its attack, which has so far killed about 42,000 Palestinians, after Hamas led an attack on Israel on October 7 of last year.
On the ground, rubble piles high above the level of pedestrians and donkey carts on narrow, dusty paths that were once busy roads.
“Who is going to come here to remove the rubble for us? No one, so we are doing it ourselves,” said Yusri Abu Shabab, a taxi driver, after removing enough rubble from his home in Khan Yunis to erect a tent.
According to United Nations satellite data, two-thirds of Gaza’s buildings built before the war, or more than 163,000 buildings, were damaged or leveled. About a third of them were multi-storey buildings.
After a seven-week war in Gaza in 2014, UNDP and its partners were able to remove 3 million tons of debris, 7% of the total now. Mrakić pointed to an initial unpublished estimate that said removing 10 million tons of debris would cost $280 million, which would mean about $1.2 billion in total if the war stopped now.
The United Nations estimated in April that removing the rubble would take 14 years.
Buried bodies and unexploded bombs
Mrakić said the wreckage contained unrecovered bodies and unexploded bombs. The Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip says that the number of these bodies may reach 10,000.
The International Committee of the Red Cross says the threat is “widespread,” and UN officials say some of the debris poses a high risk of injury.
Nizar Zoroub from Khan Yunis lives with his son in a house that only remains of a roof tilted at a dangerous angle.
The United Nations Environment Program said that an estimated 2.3 million tons of debris may be contaminated, based on an assessment of eight refugee camps in the Gaza Strip, some of which were bombed.
Asbestos fibers can cause laryngeal, ovarian and lung cancer when inhaled.
The World Health Organization recorded about one million cases of acute respiratory infections in the Gaza Strip during the past year, without specifying the number of dust-related cases.
Basma Akbar, a spokeswoman for the World Health Organization, said dust was a “major concern” that could contaminate water and soil and lead to lung disease.
Doctors fear an increase in cancer cases and birth defects in newborns due to metal leakage in the coming decades. A UNEP spokesman said snake and scorpion bites and skin infections caused by sand flies were a concern.
Lack of land and equipment
The ruins were once used to help build seaports. The United Nations now hopes to recycle some of it to build road networks and enhance the coastline.
The United Nations Development Program says that the Gaza Strip, which had a population of about 2.3 million people before the war, is crowded into a strip measuring 45 kilometers long and 10 kilometers wide, lacking the space necessary to dispose of waste and rubble.
The waste dumps are now located in an Israeli military zone. The Israeli government coordination body said it was located in a restricted area but access would be allowed.
Mrakić said more recycling means more money to finance equipment such as industrial crushers. This equipment must enter the Gaza Strip through crossing points controlled by Israel.
Government officials spoke of fuel and machinery shortages due to Israeli restrictions that are slowing down efforts to clear the rubble. A UNEP spokesperson said the lengthy approval procedures were a “major obstacle.”
The United Nations Environment Program says it needs property owners’ permission to remove the rubble, but the extent of the destruction has blurred the boundaries between them and some property records were lost during the war.
Mrakic said that many donors have expressed interest in helping since a meeting hosted by the Palestinian government in the West Bank on August 12, without naming them.
“Everyone is concerned about whether to invest in Gaza’s reconstruction if there is no political solution,” said a UN official, who requested to remain anonymous to avoid negatively impacting ongoing efforts.
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