Reconstruction efforts in Gaza will require more than $ 50 billion after 15 months of Israel devastating war, according to a new United Nations assessment, the European Union and the World Bank.
The figures come while the Arab countries continue to rush to find a viable recovery plan as an alternative to the mass movement of the 2 million residents of the Palestinian enclave proposed by the American president Donald Trump.
The interim evaluation of damage and rapid needs of Gaza & West Cisan (IRDNA), published on Tuesday, calculated that the War of Israel against Gaza caused $ 49 billion in destruction between October 8, 2023 and October 8, 2024 .
The researchers concluded that $ 53.2 billion was now necessary for the recovery and reconstruction of the Palestinian territory over the next 10 years, with around $ 20 billion in the full amount required in the first three years only.
“Funding will require a large coalition of donors, various financing instruments, private sector resources and significant improvements in the delivery of reconstruction equipment to Gaza in the post-conflict period,” said the joint report.
More than half of the estimated total cost of reconstruction, or 29.9 billion dollars, is necessary for damaged buildings and other key infrastructure, while funds to reconstruct the destroyed residential housing of Gaza form the majority of this figure – $ 15.2 billion.
The accommodation suffered the most during the 15 -month -old attack on Israel against the territory, the editors of the report believing that it represented 53% of the total destruction caused by the Israeli forces in Gaza, rising to more than 292,000 houses destroyed or damaged.
Another 19.1 billion dollars is necessary to compensate for social and economic losses resulting from serious damage to sectors of health, education, trade and industry in Gaza, estimates the report.
Researchers also say that 95% of Gaza hospitals are now non -functional, while the local economy has contracted 83%.
IRDNA is monitoring of the temporary evaluation of damage (IDA) published by the UN, the EU and the World Bank in April 2024, which estimated about $ 18.5 billion in damages after Only four months of War from Israel.
Years of cleaning unplodced ammunition and the elimination of millions of tons of rubble is also in advance in the context of reconstruction efforts.
An uncertain future
The conclusions of the report are involved in the midst of a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, the Israeli army accused of having carried out repeated truce violations since its entry into force on January 19.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also not excluded a return to war in the coastal enclave if Hamas does not continue to return all the captives it holds there.
The authors of the report have therefore warned that the conditions are not yet in place for the large -scale recovery and reconstruction work to start, given the lack of clarity on the future of Gaza, in particular how it will be governed.
“The speed, scale and scope of recovery will be shaped by these conditions,” said the report.
Since his return to the White House at the end of January, Trump said that he “would take over” and “owns” Gaza, which implies emptying the band of its inhabitants and transforming the territory into what Trump described as the “Riviera from the Middle East”.
As part of this plan, Trump said that he would definitively move 2 million Palestinians. He put pressure on Jordan and Egypt to welcome those forced to leave Gaza.
Netanyahu expressed strong support for Trump’s proposal, and his government announced on Monday that he had formed a special direction for the “voluntary departure” of the Palestinians of the Coastal Enclave.
Egypt opens the way to a reconstruction plan led by Arabs who would maintain the population of Gaza in their homeland.
On Monday, the Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Badr, Abdeatty, said that Cairo “actively develops a full and multi-flat plan for the early recovery and reconstruction of Gaza”.
Above all, Cairo claims that the plan would not require that the population of Gaza is moved. Instead, “secure areas” would be established where Palestinians can live, while dozens of Egyptian and international construction companies eliminate and rehabilitate the infrastructure torn by war.
This plan can see up to $ 20 billion provided by the Arab and Gulf for reconstruction efforts, the Reuters news agency reported on Tuesday, citing two anonymous Egyptian security sources with knowledge of the issue.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sissi will go to the Saudi capital Riyadh, Thursday to discuss the plan before an Arab summit in Cairo on March 4 to potentially finalize the proposal, said Reuters.
The Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said that Israel was waiting to assess the plan of Egypt.
But he reiterated the long -standing position of Israel according to which any plan in which Hamas continued to have a political or military presence in Gaza would not be acceptable.
