How much of Gaza is left? And how will it be rebuilt?
Ceasefire reveals the full extent of Israel’s devastating attacks
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Steve
Gaza will join the list of cities utterly gutted by war, taking its place alongside Dresden in Germany, the a-bombed Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and more recently, Mariupol, Ukraine.



The pause in fighting reached this week is allowing more camera crews to enter the region and the images of destruction are almost impossible to comprehend.
“The progressive destruction I saw first-hand hit me to my core,” said Dr Khaled Dawas, a British Palestinian surgeon who worked in Gaza hospitals during the war. “The intentional destruction, not just of people’s lives, but also of infrastructure, was a clear attempt to drive people out of their homes, doctors and health care workers included.”
The fighting has left roughly a quarter of all structures in Gaza destroyed or severely damaged, according to a U.N. assessment in September based on satellite footage. It calculated around 66% of structures, including more than 227,000 housing units, had sustained at least some damage leaving a million people homeless.
Mountains of rubble strewn with bodies and unexploded bombs
Civil defence services in the Gaza Strip began searching Monday for bodies still buried under rubble in areas that were inaccessible before the ceasefire went into effect on Sunday.
Palestinian Civil Defence Spokesman Mahmoud Saber Basal said the organization estimates that the bodies of more than 10,000 people who were not included in the death toll are still buried under the rubble throughout the Strip, according to Haaretz.
Last month, Israel’s Army Radio, quoting military officials, said about 50,000 bombs had been dropped on Gaza by Israeli warplanes since the outbreak of war on October 7, 2023, adding that 2,000 to 3,000 bombs did not explode, reported Al Jazeera.
People vaporized, like Hiroshima
Basel added that at least 2,840 bodies had vaporized, leaving no trace as a result of Israel’s use of heavy bombs that produce extremely high temperatures of 7,000 to 9,000 degrees Celsius.
At least 2,840 bodies had vaporized, leaving no trace as a result of Israel’s use of heavy bombs.
During the war, the Palestinian Civil Defence retrieved around 38,000 bodies from the rubble of buildings and rescued around 97,000 injured people, he added.
As part of the ceasefire deal, 600 aid trucks are moving into Gaza per day with supplies, but the need is much greater.
“Every person in Gaza has been traumatized by what's gone on. It's going to be a long, long process of rehabilitation and rebuilding,” Sam Rose, acting director of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in Gaza, told the BBC.
Who will lead the reconstruction, how much will it cost, and who will pay?
It will take fifteen years and 100 trucks to move 40 million tons of rubble, let alone rebuild the housing, restore water and power infrastructure, set up hospitals and schools, the list goes on.
There is no clarity about how the effort will be organized. It’s doubtful whether Hamas, which is still operating in Gaza, would be able (or willing) to take on the task, nor would Israel abide by it. The Palestinian Authority has a poor track record and little legitimacy among Palestinians.
Some estimates peg the cost of rebuilding Gaza at $50 billion.
Wealthy Arab countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have said they are only willing to contribute to Gaza’s reconstruction as part of a postwar settlement that creates a path to a Palestinian state, reports AP.
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ruled that out, saying he won’t allow Hamas or even the Western-backed Palestinian Authority to govern Gaza. He has said Israel will maintain open-ended security control and delegate civilian affairs to local Palestinians.
Corruption and Iraq-ification of Gaza
As PeaceQuest readers will recall from my article in November, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu plans to privatize military rule in Gaza by handing it over to private companies with private financial interests and nothing beyond that. It steals a page from the U.S.’s pilfering of Iraq twenty years ago.
No matter who is organizing the rebuilding, the potential of rampant corruption to further victimize Palestinians is ever-present.
Canadian author Naomi Klein called this phenomenon “Disaster Capitalism” – using the public’s disorientation following massive collective shocks – wars, terrorist attacks, or natural disasters – to achieve control by imposing economic shock therapy.
On top of all this, the Trump Administration may have plans of its own: “Gaza’s interesting, it’s a phenomenal location. On the sea, the best weather. Everything's good. Some beautiful things can be done with it. It’s very interesting. Some fantastic things can be done with it,” Trump told reporters while signing executive orders in the Oval Office.
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Steve
Canada is complicit in the destruction of Gaza. Our federal government provides contracts to companies that provide Israel with more destructive capability, e.g. Elbit systems. Also, the Canadian government has given a multi-billion contract to WSP, a Canadian multinational company headquartered in Montréal, for refurbishing the central block of the Parliament buildings. Its Israeli subsidiary is a principal contractor assisting the government of Israel with the extension of the Jerusalem Light Rail system (“JLR”). Since its inception, the JLR has been criticized as infrastructure that integrates the illegal Israeli settlements in occupied East Jerusalem into the territory of Israel.
I wouldn't build where there's risk of another demolition. Maybe we should just insist that Israelis and Palestinians now swap territories.