Rebuilding Gaza was seen as a ‘Herculean’ task before Oct. 7. This article by Dima Nazzal on April 8 begins with a reference to a UN report titled “A Liveable Place.” According to the 2012 report:
to ensure that Gaza in 2020 will be “a liveable place,” on-going herculean efforts by Palestinians and partners in such sectors as energy, education, health, water and sanitation need to be accelerated and intensified in the face of all difficulties.
Turning to the present, Dima Nazzal, a professor at Georgia Tech, says “six months of bombing has led to crises that will long outlive the war.”
Today, after six months of bombardment, mass displacement and siege by Israel, the task of rebuilding Gaza seems practically unimaginable. It is hard to look beyond the daily horrors of warfare in Gaza. The immediate concern is for people’s lives, but in time Gaza will turn to recovery and reconstruction.
Dr. Nazzal gives details of the damage and destruction in Gaza since October 7. She says economic collapse, infrastructure destruction, environmental damage and displacement have created “a multidimensional crisis.”
The war has devastated the enclave’s economy. The U.N estimated in mid-February that almost half of all cropland had been damaged and that some 70% of Gaza’s fishing fleet had reportedly been destroyed.
In the first few months of bombing, nearly 70% of Gaza’s 439,000 homes and about half of all buildings – including commercial outlets – were damaged or destroyed.
Dr. Nazzal discusses the desperate health care situation:
A lack of clean water and essential medical supplies has contributed to soaring rates of infectious diseases, acute respiratory infections, severe dehydration and diarrhea.
Three-quarters of hospitals and two-thirds of primary health care clinics have shut down, leaving only 10 out of 36 hospitals barely functioning — amputations are carried out without anesthesia, and miscarriages have increased by 300%.
Hospitals and clinics struggle to operate without electricity, and many health care workers have been injured or killed, which drastically affects the capacity of the health care system.
Dr. Nazzal notes that education has been similarly impacted.
Many schools and universities have been destroyed, making education inaccessible, which will impair employment opportunities and affect the overall economy.” The U.N. projects that 1 million children – almost every single child in Gaza – will need “mental health and psychosocial support.”
She adds that 1.7 million people have been forced from their homes “that are largely destroyed,” and this displacement leads to “increased poverty and a higher risk of malnutrition.”
Dr. Nazzal says the conflict in Gaza has killed more than 33,000 people, but “devastation caused by armed conflicts extends beyond immediate casualties.” She describes an analysis of 13 recent armed conflicts by the Geneva Declaration Secretariat, “which found that indirect deaths exceeded direct deaths in 12 of them.”
The UN report places a conservative estimate that for every person directly killed by war, four more are killed by its indirect consequences – things such as waterborne diseases due to the lack of safe, clean water and destruction of water sanitation facilities, or deaths due to birth complications because of health services being disrupted.
Dr. Nazzal says rebuilding Gaza is “a daunting prospect” but not impossible; however, it is “a challenge that becomes much more difficult with each day that the war in Gaza goes on.”