Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finally agreed to a ceasefire agreement.
The agreement marks the end of the Israeli assault on Gaza which began on October 7, 2023 and left the Palestinian enclave which was home to more than two million people in ruins. With an official death toll close to 47,000 and more than 110,000 injured, Palestinians in Gaza and those who care about their lives around the world are naturally rejoicing at this news.
But unfortunately, this does not end the suffering of the Palestinians. The “aftermath” of this genocide in Gaza will be no less devastating.
Over the past 15 months, Israel has transformed the long-besieged Palestinian enclave into a post-apocalyptic wasteland; bombing, bulldozing, or methodically burning every structure its military came in sight of.
As of mid-December, an assessment of UNOSAT satellite imagery found that 170,812 structures had been damaged or destroyed in Gaza since the Israeli attack began in October 2023.
This number represents 69 percent of all structures in the enclave and approximately 245,123 housing units. It includes more than 90 percent of all school buildings and every university in Gaza. It includes (PDF) the Rafah Museum, the Jawaharlal Nehru Library at Al-Azhar University and the Gaza Municipal Library. It includes the Grand Mosque of Gaza and the Church of Saint Porphyry. It includes most of Gaza’s hospitals and nearly 70 percent of its health centers.
Satellite images also show that 70 percent of Gaza’s agricultural infrastructure was systematically destroyed during the war, either by bombing or under the weight of heavy military vehicles. As a result, food production in Gaza has been at an all-time low throughout 2024. The entire population of the enclave is now food insecure and a significant majority face “extremely high levels of hunger”. reviews.”
In April 2024, a joint World Bank and UN assessment showed that 92% of Gaza’s main roads had been damaged or destroyed. At least 75 percent of telecommunications infrastructure is damaged or destroyed. The Gaza Electricity Distribution Company reportedly lost 90 percent of its machinery and equipment and suffered losses amounting to $450 million.
During the final months of the Israeli military campaign, only one in three desalination plants were operational, providing only 7 percent of Gaza’s water needs. And, according to Oxfam, all of Gaza’s sewage treatment plants and most sewage pumping stations “have been forced to close” due to Israel’s “fuel and electricity blockade.”
But the real tragedy here is not the destruction of infrastructure, roads and buildings. What we have witnessed in Gaza is the destruction of an entire society. Israel didn’t just destroy the landscape. This has torn apart the very fabric of Gaza’s social, cultural, intellectual and economic life.
The official death toll from the Israeli military campaign in Gaza is close to 50,000 – a devastating figure in itself. Still, this is most likely a massive undercount. Gaza authorities have long lost the ability to accurately count the dead. We know that several thousand people are likely still under the rubble. In June 2024, a study published by the Lancet estimated that the actual death toll from the Israeli attack on Gaza could rise to more than 186,000 people. More than six months later, the death toll undoubtedly far exceeds this estimate.
Among those who perished in the carnage are artists and writers, like Walaa al-Faranji, killed in an airstrike in December 2024. There are poets like Refaat Alareer – the voice of a generation and a symbol revered for resistance and resilience. , who was killed in what appears to be a targeted airstrike in December 2023.
Among the dead are also thousands of teachers, university professors and students – children and young people who would have built Gaza’s future.
This staggering toll also includes more than 130 journalists, such as Mustafa Thuraya and Hamza al-Dahdouh, who were killed in targeted attacks or indiscriminate bombings while trying to do their work in incredibly difficult conditions.
Israel has also killed more than 1,000 doctors and health workers in this “war” – some with bombs, others with tank fire, for the crime of trying to help the sick and wounded. Many have also been killed, like Dr. Ziad Eldalou, in Israeli detention centers and prisons.
Rebuilding Gaza after the genocide will be an arduous task – by some estimates, it will cost more than $50 billion. But even such a colossal investment will not be enough to replace the thousands of brilliant minds – the doctors, the educators, the journalists – who have disappeared. No amount of money will be enough to heal and rebuild this society devastated by unimaginable violence and brutality.
The difficulty of reconstruction is also due to the fact that the survivors, those who are lucky enough to be able to celebrate the ceasefire today, are also traumatized and broken.
They have all been moved several times. They lost family, friends and colleagues. They lost their home, their community. These are not the same people they were 15 months ago, and healing will not be easy.
It will take years – if not decades – of unwavering global policy investment in human development before Gaza has any chance of recovery.
But even then, we cannot expect Israeli authorities to voluntarily allow this resumption. There is little reason to believe that Israel will respect this ceasefire, permanently stop the arbitrary bombings and incursions, and leave Gaza to rebuild and heal itself the “day after.”
So yes, for now, the war seems to be coming to an end. But the future looks bleak for Gaza. This is not to say that concerted international pressure on Israel to allow the reconstruction of Gaza would not work. But, for now, that possibility seems slim, as their most powerful ally, the United States, does not seem particularly keen to change the status quo. Tragically, all indications are that the “day after” in Gaza will be as painful, as devastating and as unjust as any “day before”.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Tel Aviv Tribune.