The UN demining program (UNMAS) estimates that 37 million tonnes of building debris will have to be cleared away when the war in Gaza is one day over.
With 100 trucks in continuous operation, it will take 14 years, estimates Pehr Lodhammar in UNMAS.
The work will be very demanding as an unknown number of unexploded bombs, rockets and other explosive charges are also hidden in the ruins, he tells Reuters.
– We know that at least 10 percent of the explosive weapons that are used do not work and are left unexploded, says Lodhammar.
Surpasses everything
In the first two weeks of the war in October alone, Israel dropped 29,000 tons of explosives over Gaza, and of these 90 percent were satellite-guided bombs weighing 450 or 900 kilograms.
The over 900 kilogram Mark-84 bombs leave 10-12 meter deep craters and spread deadly shrapnel over 350 meters away, according to Marc Garlasco who has investigated war crimes for the UN.
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Israeli warplanes, drones, artillery guns, tanks and armored bulldozers caused more destruction in the first three months of the war than was witnessed in Aleppo in Syria in the years 2012 to 2016 and in Mariupol in Ukraine in 2022.
Proportionally speaking, the bombing of Gaza also surpasses the bombing of Germany by the Allies during the Second World War, experts believe.
The American military historian Robert Pape pointed out at the turn of the year that between 40 and 50 percent of all buildings in some 50 German cities were destroyed in Allied attacks in the years 1942 to 1945.
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In the Gaza Strip, at least 60 percent of all residential buildings and 80 percent of all other buildings are now completely or partially destroyed, according to the UN.
Will take decades
If the economic growth in Gaza after the war is the same as it was in the years 2007 to 2022, it will take almost 70 years before the economy is the same as before the war, the UN’s main body for trade, investment and development issues (UNCTAD) has calculated.
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– Only in 2092 will Gaza be back at the 2022 level, and even then Gaza was not a good place to live, stated UN economist Rami Alazzeh in January.
Should the annual growth, contrary to expectations, be 10 percent, Gaza will still only return to the same level as before Israel introduced a full blockade of the area in 2006 in 2035, according to a UNCTAD report.
