By Fadwa HodaliFares AkramJason KaoJennah HaqueJeremy C. F. LinEquality
Photography by Ahmad SalemEquality
August 15, 2024
Moving through the Gaza Strip to avoid Israeli air strikes, Rana Abu Nassira often used Google Earth to look at the home she had been forced to abandon. Unaware that the geobrowser’s imagery does not update in real time, the 37-year-old was reassured to see the house she shared with her husband and son had survived the chaos and bombardments of the Israel-Hamas war.
Reality hit this spring when the family returned to Bani Suheila — a small town in southern Gaza — and found a desolate and disfigured landscape lacerated with giant piles of rubble and mangled metal rods.
Their home lay in ruins. Just a single tree was left standing in the garden. “I was like ‘this is not our neighborhood, this is not our street, or our house,’” Abu Nassira said. “It was crazy.”
It’s a story repeated across the south of the narrow territory when breaks in the fighting allow families to leave camps in safe zones and return to their properties, even if only briefly. Access to areas north of the Netzarim Corridor — the military road built by Israel in March — is restricted. That is to allow Israel to pursue its stated goal of seeking out Hamas fighters and infrastructure, in retaliation for a deadly incursion by the Islamist group — considered a terrorist organization by the US and European Union — on Oct. 7.
Since then, more than 70% of Gaza’s housing, already depleted in previous conflicts, has been reported as damaged, along with schools, hospitals and businesses. Most of its 2.2 million people are displaced, crammed into a tiny slice of land along the Mediterranean coast, largely cut off from fresh water and food, as well as medicine and basic sanitation, aid agencies say.
Amid all the havoc of Israel’s military operation, more than 40,000 people in Gaza have died, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants. The scale of the destruction means that as ceasefire talks restarted on Thursday in the Qatari capital, Doha, the parallel process of reconstruction is also being discussed at the highest level.
So far, Israeli air strikes have left more than 42 million tonnes of debrisacross the Strip, according to the UN. That’s enough rubble to fill a line of dump trucks stretching from New York to Singapore. Removing it all may take years and cost as much as $700 million. The task will be complicated by unexploded bombs, dangerous contaminants and human remains under the rubble.
The majority of the debris is destroyed housing, and its distribution across the Strip roughly mimics Gaza’s population density before the war.
At least 8.5 million tonnes of debris will have to be cleared from Khan Younis, where Bani Suheila is located and where Abu Nassira’s family home stood.
The governorate once produced most of Gaza’s citrus fruit, including oranges and grapefruits. Its orchards and fields now lie in ruin — at least half the Strip’s farmland has been destroyed, leading to a collapse of the agricultural sector that will take years to overcome, according to Juzoor, a local charity partnered with Oxfam.
The situation is particularly acute in the north. Gaza City — previously the Palestinian Territories’ largest urban center — and its surrounding areas have been extensively damaged, accounting for more than half of the Strip’s debris.
Rebuilding Gaza, and the lives of its residents, will require a complete overhaul of its entire physical infrastructure and some form of political solution over what a new Gaza will look like. But before any of that can happen the collection and disposal of all the rubble — after the war ends — will be of paramount importance.
So far, Israeli air strikes have left more than 42 million tonnes of debrisacross the Strip, according to the UN. That’s enough rubble to fill a line of dump trucks stretching from New York to Singapore. Removing it all may take years and cost as much as $700 million. The task will be complicated by unexploded bombs, dangerous contaminants and human remains under the rubble.
The majority of the debris is destroyed housing, and its distribution across the Strip roughly mimics Gaza’s population density before the war.
At least 8.5 million tonnes of debris will have to be cleared from Khan Younis, where Bani Suheila is located and where Abu Nassira’s family home stood.
The governorate once produced most of Gaza’s citrus fruit, including oranges and grapefruits. Its orchards and fields now lie in ruin — at least half the Strip’s farmland has been destroyed, leading to a collapse of the agricultural sector that will take years to overcome, according to Juzoor, a local charity partnered with Oxfam.
Khan Younis in August.
The situation is particularly acute in the north. Gaza City — previously the Palestinian Territories’ largest urban center — and its surrounding areas have been extensively damaged, accounting for more than half of the Strip’s debris.
Jabalia in July. Photographer: Omar Al-Qattaa/AFP/Getty Images
Rebuilding Gaza, and the lives of its residents, will require a complete overhaul of its entire physical infrastructure and some form of political solution over what a new Gaza will look like. But before any of that can happen the collection and disposal of all the rubble — after the war ends — will be of paramount importance.
Nuseirat in May.
Property rights and difficulties in finding disposal sites for contaminated debris will further complicate the process. Rebuilding Gaza could cost far more than $80 billion, when taking into account hidden expenses like the long term impact of a labor market devastated by death, injury and trauma, according to Daniel Egel, a senior economist at California-based think tank RAND. “You can rebuild a building, but how do you rebuild the lives of a million children?”
And it’s not clear who is going to pay.
“What we see in Gaza is something that we have never seen before in the history of urbanism,” said Mark Jarzombek, an architectural history professor at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has studied post World War II reconstruction. “It’s not just the destruction of physical infrastructure, it’s the destruction of basic institutions of governance and of a sense of normality.”
“The cost of rebuilding will be prohibitive. Construction sites on this scale have to be empty of people, creating another wave of displacements. No matter what one does, for generations Gaza will be struggling with this,” Jarzombek added.
A meeting of donor countries and global charities in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Aug. 12 was an opening salvo in those efforts to secure financial aid.
Organized by the UN Development and Environment Programmes and the Palestinian Authority — the only internationally-recognized body representing Palestinians — it discussed what should happen next. Given the money, manpower and equipment needed, devising a plan now for debris clearance is crucial so that work can start as soon as fighting ends, Ahed Bseiso, the Palestinian Authority’s minister for public works and housing told reporters after the meeting.
Gaza is no stranger to conflict. Hamas has fought four other wars with Israel since 2007 when it wrested power of the strip from Fatah, its rival that leads the Palestinian Authority and is based in the West Bank, the larger of the two Palestinian Territories. This war is by far the longest and most damaging.
After previous rounds of fighting, Gulf states, the EU, US and Japan were among donors that pledged, but didn’t always provide, funds to help Gaza’s recovery. Qatar was one of the biggest backers — investing directly in roads, hospitals, and housing complexes, as well as agricultural and infrastructure projects, plus grants, amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars over a decade. But key players have said they are reluctant to contribute again without a negotiating track to a political solution that ends the cycle of violence.
Intense debate over what that would entail are ongoing alongside the Qatar and Egypt-mediated ceasefire talks and discussions on de-escalating tensions with Iran and the Tehran-backed Lebanese militia Hezbollah. Arab states are among those advocating for a comprehensive plan for Gaza immediately after the war to create two states and a governing role for a reinvigorated Palestinian Authority that doesn’t include Hamas. US President Joe Biden’s administration is pushing Israel’s current religious-nationalist government — which opposes Palestinian sovereignty and doesn’t want to cede control over security — for greater flexibility.
In Ramallah, officials from the Palestinian Authority have been mapping out Gaza’s reconstruction for months. They presented their vision to the international community in Brussels in May, and have been trying to drum up support ever since.
Despite being sidelined in Gaza since Hamas’s power grab 17 years ago, the Palestinian Authority still pays about 40% of the Strip’s official expenditure, such as the salaries and pensions of civil servants as well as services like water and electricity, which are largely controlled by Israel. It also coordinated rebuilding efforts following the previous conflict between Israel and Hamas with international institutions, aid organizations and the various UN agencies. That is likely to be the case this time, too.
All parties will have to agree on a reconstruction blueprint, foremost Israel, which has blocked so-called dual-use materials — anything that could help Hamas build tunnels or weapons — from entering the territory since 2007. “We hope for a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip,” Bseiso said in an interview. “We need to move freely and control our borders in order for the material to enter Gaza, and we hope that Israel won’t ban its entry.”
When asked about debris removal, a spokesperson for Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, a Defense Ministry body, said it’s focusing on facilitating aid for now. Israeli officials said that it’s too early to comment on reconstruction.
Israel launched its air and ground offensive a day after Hamas fighters crossed into southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostages back to Gaza. The release of those still captive in the Strip in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli jails is a major focus of ceasefire negotiations. Israel says that part of the reason so much of the territory has been destroyed is because Hamas rooted itself in every physical part of life and then dug some 500 miles of tunnels for a fortified underground base. It believes Yahya Sinwar, the attack’s mastermind, is hiding in the Strip. Israel sees defeating Hamas as an existential challenge — not only to stop it from ever attacking again but also to send a warning to other anti-Israel militias like Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen that they will be hunted down and destroyed.
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2024-gaza-who-will-pay-to-rebuild/