NEW YORK, August 16. /TASS/. Israeli strikes on residential areas in the Gaza Strip have left more than 42 mln metric tons of debris across the enclave, Bloomberg writes.

According to the news agency, removing it all may take years and cost $700 mln, while rebuilding Gaza could cost over $80 bln. "The task will be complicated by unexploded bombs, dangerous contaminants and human remains under the rubble," Bloomberg notes, adding that according to the UN estimates, "reprocessing only half of such rubble would be enough to rebuild Gaza’s entire road network."

At least 40,000 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip since October 2023; 70% of buildings have been destroyed and 2.2 mln people, cut off from water, food and medical care, have been forced to leave their homes. In addition, more than half of the enclave’s farmland has been destroyed and it will be extremely difficult to restore the agricultural sector, the agency points out.

"The cost of rebuilding will be prohibitive. Construction sites on this scale have to be empty of people, creating another wave of displacements," Bloomberg quoted Mark Jarzombek, an architectural history professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as saying. "What we see in Gaza is something that we have never seen before in the history of urbanism," he said, adding: "It’s not just the destruction of physical infrastructure, it’s the destruction of basic institutions of governance and of a sense of normality."

Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7, 2023, when militants from the radical Palestinian movement Hamas staged a surprise attack on Israeli territory from Gaza, killing residents of Israeli border settlements and taking 250 hostages. In response, Israel launched a military operation in the Palestinian enclave to destroy Hamas military and political wings and free all hostages. According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, Israel’s military operations have killed over 40,000 people and left 92,000 injured.