The Israeli war on the Gaza Strip caused the death of more than 34,000 Palestinians and left catastrophic levels of hunger and injuries. It also caused massive material destruction in the Strip that exceeded the level of destruction suffered by the German city of Dresden, which was bombed by the Allied forces in 1945 during World War II.
According to an American military study dating back to 1954, reported by the Financial Times, the bombing at the end of World War II damaged 59% of Dresden’s buildings.
In late April, the director of the demining program in the Palestinian territories, Mungo Birch, said that the amount of rubble that should be removed in Gaza exceeds the rubble left behind by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in more than two years.
“The rate of damage recorded is unlike anything we have studied before,” said Corey Shear of the City University of New York, who has researched satellite images of Gaza. “It is much faster and more widespread than anything we have surveyed before.”
At a time when Israeli army tanks entered the Rafah area, the last population center in Gaza that had not yet been entered by its ground forces, Agence France-Presse takes a look at the scenes of destruction in the area 7 months after the outbreak of the war.
75% of Gaza City was destroyed
Gaza is one of the most densely populated areas in the world, with 2.3 million people living in the 365-square-kilometre strip before the war.
According to satellite analyzes conducted by Scheer and Yamon van den Hoek, assistant professor of geography at Oregon State University, 56.9% of Gaza’s buildings were damaged or destroyed as of last April 21, reaching 160,000 buildings.
“The fastest rates of destruction occurred in the first two to three months of the bombing,” Sher told Agence France-Presse. In Gaza City, which had a population of 600,000 before the war, the situation is extremely dangerous, as approximately 75% of its buildings were damaged or destroyed.
Hospitals are rubble
Israel repeatedly attacked Gaza’s hospitals, and during the first six weeks of the war, 60% of health facilities were destroyed or damaged.
Al-Shifa Medical Complex, the largest hospital in the Strip in Gaza City, was targeted by two attacks launched by the Israeli army, the first last November, and the second in March.
The World Health Organization reported that the second operation turned the hospital into an “empty structure” littered with human remains.
According to figures collected by Agence France-Presse from the “Open Street Map” project, the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip, and the United Nations Satellite Center, 5 hospitals were completely destroyed, and fewer than 3 hospitals out of 3 (i.e. 28%) are still partially functioning, according to the United Nations. United.
Destruction of schools and mosques
The Strip’s schools, most of which are run by the United Nations, and where many civilians have taken refuge to escape the fighting, have also paid a heavy price.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) counted 408 schools that were damaged, equivalent to at least 72.5% of these educational facilities, whose data indicate that their number is 563.
Of these facilities, 53 school buildings were completely destroyed and 274 other buildings were damaged by direct fire.
The United Nations estimates that two-thirds of schools will need complete or major reconstruction to return to service. Regarding places of worship, data shows that 61.5% of mosques were damaged or destroyed.
40 billion for reconstruction
The United Nations estimated that, as of early May, reconstruction will cost between 30 and 40 billion dollars as a result of the war in Gaza that broke out on October 7.