It could take 350 years for Gaza to be rebuilt if it remains under blockade, says UN report

United Nations agencies have long warned that it could take decades to rebuild Gaza after Israel’s offensive against Hamas, one of the deadliest and most destructive military campaigns since World War II.

Now, more than a year after the war began, a new report speaks in terms of centuries.

The UN Conference on Trade and Development said in a report released on Monday that if the war ends tomorrow and Gaza returns to the status quo before Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, it could take 350 years for its devastated economy returns. to its precarious pre-war level.

Before the war, Gaza was under an Israeli and Egyptian blockade imposed after Hamas took power in 2007. Four previous wars and divisions between Hamas and the Western-backed Palestinian Authority in the West Bank have also affected Gaza’s economy.

The current war has caused staggering destruction across the territory, with entire neighborhoods destroyed and roads and critical infrastructure in ruins. Mountains of rubble mixed with decomposing bodies and unexploded ordnance would have to be removed before reconstruction could begin.

“Once a ceasefire is achieved, a return to the pre-October 2023 status quo would not put Gaza on the necessary path to recovery and sustainable development,” the report states. “If the 2007-2022 growth trend returns, with an average growth rate of 0.4 percent, it will take Gaza 350 years just to restore 2022 GDP levels.”

Even so, GDP per capita would decline “continuously and precipitously” as the population grew, he said.

Israel says the blockade is necessary to prevent Hamas from importing weapons and blames the militant group for the situation in Gaza. “There is no future for the people of Gaza as long as their people continue to be occupied by Hamas,” said Israel’s UN ambassador, Danny Danon, in response to the report.

Three hundred and fifty years is a long time. It would be as if England and the Netherlands were only now recovering from the wars they fought against each other at the end of the 17th century.

Rami Alazzeh, author of the report, said he based the calculation on the decimation of the economy during the first seven months of the war and how long it would take to restore it to Gaza’s average GDP growth rate from 2007 to 2022. Gross domestic product, or GDP, is the sum total of all goods and services produced in a country or territory.

“The message is that recovery in Gaza depends on the conditions under which recovery would happen,” he said. “We are not saying it will take Gaza 350 years to recover, because that means Gaza will never recover.”

In late January, the World Bank estimated $18.5 billion in damage – nearly the combined economic output of the West Bank and Gaza in 2022. This was before some intensely destructive Israeli ground operations, including in the city of Rafah in southern border.

A UN assessment carried out in September, based on satellite images, revealed that around a quarter of all structures in Gaza were destroyed or seriously damaged. It said about 66% of structures, including more than 227,000 housing units, suffered at least some damage.

The Shelter Cluster, an international coalition of aid providers led by the Norwegian Refugee Council, calculated how long it would take to rebuild all the destroyed homes under what became known as the Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism. This process was established after the 2014 war to facilitate some reconstruction under strong Israeli surveillance.

It turned out that, with this configuration, it would take 40 years to rebuild all the houses.

The report states that even in the most optimistic scenario, with a projected growth rate of 10%, Gaza’s recovery would still take decades.

“Assuming the absence of any military operations and the freedom of movement of goods and people, a significant level of investment and population growth of 2.8 percent per year, UNCTAD estimates that Gaza’s GDP per capita will return to its level from 2022 to 2050”, he stated.

A separate report released Tuesday by the United Nations Development Program says that with major investments and the lifting of economic restrictions, the Palestinian economy as a whole, including the West Bank, could be back on track by 2034. In the absence of both , its predictions align with those of UNCTAD.

The most positive scenarios seem unlikely.

Hamas-led militants killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and abducted another 250 when they invaded southern Israel on October 7, 2023. About 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.

Israel’s offensive has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not distinguish between fighters and civilians, but say that more than half of those killed are women and children. It displaced around 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to live in squalid camps.

It is unlikely that Israel will lift the blockade while Hamas is present in Gaza. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would maintain open security control over the territory.

Since May, Israel has controlled all Gaza border crossings. UN agencies and humanitarian groups say they have struggled to bring in food and emergency aid due to Israeli restrictions, ongoing fighting and the breakdown of law and order inside Gaza.

There is also no indication that international donors are willing to finance the reconstruction of Gaza while it remains under war or Israeli occupation. Gulf Arab states such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have said they will only do so if there is a path to a Palestinian state, something Netanyahu is deeply opposed to.

Meanwhile, the war continues with no end in sight.

Earlier this month, Israel launched another major operation in northern Gaza – the most destroyed part of the territory – saying Hamas had regrouped there.

“Everyone is now calling for a ceasefire, but people forget that once the ceasefire is reached, the 2.2 million Palestinians will wake up without homes, without children, without schools, without universities, without hospitals, without roads,” Alazzeh said. .

All of this will take a long time to rebuild and may be impossible under lockdown.

“If we go back to where it was before, and we shouldn’t go back to how it was before,” he said, “then I think that means Gaza is over.”

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