Clearing the rubble left from Israel’s sweeping bombardment of the Gaza Strip is expected to take 15 years and cost between $500m and $600m, the UN said on Monday.

The UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (Unrwa) posted on X about the staggering cost and years needed for reconstruction, saying the debris are a potential threat and “harmful”. 

“Debris poses a deadly threat for people in the Gaza Strip as it can contain unexploded ordnance and harmful substances,” Unrwa said, adding that it would take more than 100 trucks to clear rubble.

The values show how difficult it will be to rebuild Gaza, even as Israel continues to pummel the enclave.

Israel dropped at least 70,000 tonnes of bombs on Gaza between 7 October and 4 May, surpassing the World War II bombings in Dresden, Hamburg, and London combined, according to the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor.

 

Unrwa cited a report from the UN environment programme released in June which said that 137,297 buildings had been damaged in Gaza, more than half the enclave’s total. It would take sprawling landfill sites occupying between 250 and 500 hectares to dump the rubble, the report said.

The report also said that Israel’s offensive likely set the Gaza Strip back 44 years in terms of the development of healthcare, education and wealth.

The report found that explosive weapons used in the war have generated around 39 million tonnes of debris, with every square metre of Gaza littered with more than 107kg of debris on average.

It also found that water, sanitation and hygiene systems in Gaza are almost entirely defunct, with the Strip’s five wastewater treatment plants shut down.

“All of this is deeply harming people’s health, food security and Gaza’s resilience,” said UN environmental programme (Unep) executive director, Inger Andersen.

Israel’s war is exacerbating an already deteriorating environment in Gaza, where over 92 percent of water was deemed unfit for human consumption in 2020.

The UN report came as a result of a request from the Palestinian Environment Quality Authority in December, in which it called on Unep to look into environmental damages in Gaza.

Climate change and Israel’s attacks on environmental infrastructure have long plagued Gaza and other parts of occupied Palestine.

After the Nakba, which refers to the ethnic cleansing and destruction of Palestinian communities in 1948 by Zionist forces, the Jewish National Fund planted monoculture forests of pine trees, which destroy bio-diversity and indigenous lands, often on the ruins of Palestinian villages.

At least 38,664 Palestinians have been killed and 89,097 wounded by Israel’s war on Gaza since 7 October, the Palestinian health ministry said on Monday.

At least 80 Palestinians were killed and 216 wounded by Israeli forces in the past 24 hours, the ministry added.