Davos:
The United Nations said the Israel-Hamas war has set back development in Gaza by 60 years and raising the tens of billions of dollars needed for reconstruction will be a difficult task.
Nearly two-thirds of all buildings in the Gaza Strip have been destroyed or damaged, and removing an estimated 42 million tons of debris will be dangerous and complicated, the head of the United Nations Development Program told AFP.
“Probably between 65 percent and 70 percent of the buildings in Gaza have been either completely destroyed or damaged,” Achim Steiner said in an interview at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in the Swiss ski resort town of Davos.
“But we are also talking about an economy that has been destroyed, where we estimate that about 60 years of development has been lost in this conflict in 15 months.
“The two million people who are in the Gaza Strip have not only lost their shelter: they have lost public infrastructure, sewage treatment systems, freshwater supply systems, public waste management. All these fundamental infrastructure and service elements are not only Do not exist.”
And for all these huge numbers, Steiner insists: “Human frustration is not just something you capture in statistics.”
‘Years and Years’
A fragile ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza war took effect on Sunday.
Steiner said it was difficult to put a deadline on reconstruction because of the “unstable” nature of the ceasefire, and because the UN’s immediate focus is on life-saving aid.
“When we talk about rebuilding, we’re not talking about a year or two here,” he said.
“We’re talking about years and years until you even come close to rebuilding, first of all, the physical infrastructure, but also an entire economy.
“People had savings. People had loans. People had invested in businesses. And it’s all been lost. So we’re talking about physical and economic, and in some ways also psychosocial, to rebuild. Even the steps.”
He said physical reconstruction alone would cost “tens of billions of dollars”, and “we face an enormously uphill struggle on how to mobilize that scale of finance”.
‘Extraordinary’ destruction
The estimated amount of debris could increase yet further and will leave the reconstruction effort with immense challenges.
“It’s not a simple undertaking of just loading it up and taking it somewhere. This wreck is dangerous. There are often bodies that probably haven’t been recovered. There’s unexploded ordnance, landmines,” explained Steiner.
“One option is recycling. With remanufacturing, there is a significant degree to which you can recycle these materials and use them in the remanufacturing process,” Steiner said.
“The interim solution would be to transfer the debris to temporary dumps and deposits from where it can later be taken for either permanent processing or disposal.”
In the meantime, if the ceasefire expires and the firms liquidate, Steiner said a huge amount of temporary infrastructure will be needed.
“Virtually every school and every hospital has either been seriously damaged or destroyed,” he said.
“It’s an extraordinary physical destruction that has occurred.”
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