Clearing the rubble in Gaza and then…
JVL Introduction
“The damage to infrastructure is insane … In … Khan Younis, there is not one building untouched,” ….“The actual topography has changed…The 2,000lbs [907kg] bombs dropped [by Israel] are actually altering the landscape.”
While the financial cost outlined here at $40 billion is not huge (eg compare this amount, for example with that wasted by the UK Tory government on useless COVID PPE contracts). However, it is much more about the logistics of rebuilding, the many years that will be needed and the huge risks involved, mainly from unexploded ordnance.
Most importantly, the human cost of this destruction is unimaginable, indescribable. Where should the people of Gaza go during these 15 years of rebuilding? What is the cost – and time needed – to rebuild the shattered lives and to heal the mental trauma from this, the most vicious of so many vicious and disproportionate attacks by Israel on the people and places of the Gaza Strip?
LL
This article was originally published by The Guardian on Mon 15 Jul 2024. Read the original here.
Clearing Gaza of almost 40m tonnes of war rubble will take years, says UN
Assessment (to clear rubble) puts cost at $500m-$600m and underlines immense challenge of rebuilding after months of Israeli offensive
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The only way I can see of preventing any more such wholesale obliterations of civilian infrastructure in the future is to make those who did the damage PAY for repairing it.
There are two “wars” in progress at the moment where reparations OUGHT to be paid to the victims – the Israel-Palestine and the Russia-Ukraine conflicts.
The world and the Palestinians should look to the mechanisms Ukraine is setting up to make Russia pay for destroying Ukraine’s hospitals, schools, utilities and environment. Ukraine now has a “central register” of the destruction caused, the first step before getting compensation from Russia.
How Russia is to be made to pay isn’t clear, legally or practically. The International Court of Justice (and / or ICC) might get involved in ruling on what Russia owes in reparations and how payments are to be administered / enforced. Presumably the international sanctions and the freezing / confiscation of Russian assets will continue until Russia complies with the schedule for paying reparations.
The model used for paying Russian reparations to Ukraine will probably serve for Israel paying reparations to the Palestinians.
It’ll be very difficult to make Russia pay reparations to Ukraine – and even more difficult to get Israel to pay reparations to the Palestinians. Somehow both must be done.
The cost in human lives is beyond comprehension,the environment will and is suffering.Destroy and make profit at rebuilding,the latest fashion for elite out of touch lunatics.
“The war began when Hamas launched a surprise attack into southern Israel in October, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 250 others.” No. The “war” began long before October 2023, when one colonial power [Great Britain] handed Palestine it over to another colonial power [The Zionists in Palestine]. The devastation and destruction of the “infrastructure” in Palestine is embedded in the colonialist’s plan to erase both its indigenous peoples and any trace of their existence from their land. Palestine isn’t just Gaza: it’s the border from the river to the sea, with Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and the Mediterranean. The Cities of Palestine and its people include Al Quds, Um Al-Rashrash, Haifa, Askalan, Al-Lydd and Yafa. Whilst there is talk of rebuilding Gaza, “we” can’t deny Palestinian Muslims, Christians and other faiths, the right to move back to their original homes across their land. Occupied Palestine [“Israel”] is shrinking. In the North, the Lebanese resistance has reached further south into the illegal colonies than in previous wars and has much greater capabilities than ever before. The Israeli Government has evacuated over 200,000 from the north to hotels and other settlements. The Zionist occupied Syrian Golan Heights no longer represent the military fortress they once were, due to the destruction of key communications and military bases by Hezbollah. The Manager of the Port of Rashrash has announced its almost complete closure and bankruptcy, with the absence of shipping due to the resistance arm of the Yemeni Republic. The Gaza Strip is a creation of the Occupation. Many of the areas of the strip are named after the villages and towns from whence the Palestinians were forced to vacate. Yes, Gaza and all the towns along the old route from Alexandria will be eventually rebuilt, but the rubble of Gaza doesn’t prevent the rebuilding of Palestinian homes across the whole of the country. In spite of its use of force, the Zionist entity is creaking economically, politically and militarily, even with Western bomb factories fuelling its genocide. Its end must be near. Like a cornered rabid dog, it will continue to behave like a fascists terrorist state, but it won’t last another 76 years.
2,000 lb bombs to “target Hamas”. Really ? I don’t believe you. You’re making it up. Israel never did such a thing. You’re clearly anti-semitic!
I suggest the cost is much higher, nearer to a trillion dollars for all the damage, reconstruction and reparations to Gaza and the Gaza’s. This must be borne not only by Israel, but the US, UK and all the EU countries who supplied arms and logistics to carry out the genocide. Bu first it must stop immediately! The UN Security Council should either sanction or expel the US from being on the Council as the key facilitator of the genocide, and the key obstacle to stopping it. Israel must pull out completely from Gaza, and the West Bank, and a huge UN force introduced to take-over the running of these territories, while a Gaza/Nuremberg established to prosecute all the leaders of the government and military, and all its armed forces who participated on this unimaginable genocide. Nearly all of Israel (except for the few human rights organisations and individuals) backed this genocide.
The Zionist State must be dismantled, and run by the UN until proper peace and democracy is restored, and a new one-state model established where Palestinians as the oppressed party, and the Israelis who refused to support the war, and all the Israeli and Palestinian historians have a proper say in how it is organised. That is a suggested start!
The Guardian headline informs us that “the $500m-$600m cost of clearing the rubble underlines immense challenge of rebuilding”.
Actually it does nothing of the sort As the JVL introduction would suggest, for the world’s ruling oligarchs such a sum is actually peanuts. We need only recall that a little under half that sum ($230m) was spent by Biden on the cynical propaganda exercise of building the useless and now discarded Gaza pier which was only in operation for 25 days, while an Indian oligarch has just spent the sum of $600m mentioned above on his wedding celebrations. Furthermore this sum is utterly dwarfed – by a factor of 20 – by the US military aid of 12.3 billion recently budgeted for Israel.
In the context of an accelerating genocide with its irreversible human, environmental and cultural annihilation, such considerations appear only as an obscenity.
John Hall – I am afraid it is true: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/11/us/israel-gaza-bombs.html