Buildings crushed by Israeli bombings have polluted the air in a way that is dangerous to health. The war will delay the development of Gaza by decades.
More and more worrying information is leaking out about the situation in the northern part of the Gaza Strip. Gaza has been under a full Israeli blockade for over a year.
Secretary General of the UN evaluate over the weekend, that people are buried under the rubble, the wounded are not receiving treatment, and that the Palestinians are even starving for lack of food.
On Tuesday, it was reported that the Israeli Parliament has approved a legal initiative that prohibits the activities of the UN organization UNRWA, which focuses on assisting Palestinian refugees, in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Some members of UNRWA have been suspected of having participated in the terrorist attacks of the extremist organization Hamas against Israel in October 2023. The attacks started the ongoing war.
At the same time, in parts of Gaza, life is being tried to return to at least a little more normality – even though you can’t talk about normalcy in the middle of the destruction.
– There is an ongoing development emergency, says the UN representative Sarah Poole To .
Poole is the special representative of the development organization UNDP in the aid program for the Palestinians.
Concrete rubble would fill 11 times the pyramids of Giza
Sarah Poole visited southern Gaza a month ago. The news pictures came true: the streets are full of destroyed buildings, in the middle of which people live.
As a result of the war, there were already 42 million tons of concrete rubble in Gaza around May, the UN estimates. Damaged buildings still standing and collapsed buildings are included.
Now the number has increased even more than that. It is estimated that the concrete rubble would fill more than 11 times the largest pyramids in Egypt.
– In addition to everything else, crushed stone causes serious environmental problems. The ruins contain air-polluting asbestos and hospital waste, says Sarah Poole.
So far, 160,000 tons of rubble have been successfully cleared in order to facilitate access to vital services such as health stations.
– Clearing is a huge job. The purpose is also to recycle and reuse the crushed concrete, but we are only at the beginning of the project, Poole describes.
Human development declines when schools are closed
War not only kills people, but causes great suffering to those who are left to live in war-damaged conditions.
The UN development organization UNDP has measured the effects of the war on Gaza’s socio-economic development. This refers to income level, for example.
The war will delay development in Gaza by up to 69 years, the UN estimates. Arvioi is based on the UN Human Development Index, which evaluates economic development, life expectancy and education.
This means that development is regressing to the level of 1955.
– The results are startling. The decline in development can be seen, for example, in the collapse of healthcare and education, says Sarah Poole.
In the entire Palestinian territory, including the West Bank and Gaza, the economy has shrunk by 35 percent since the start of the war, the UN estimates.
A UNDP employee and his family were killed in an airstrike
The development organization UNDP has had a program assisting the Palestinians since 1978. The organization usually has 55 employees in Gaza.
Some of the workers have managed to leave the war. One more the employee and his family died In an Israeli airstrike in December 2023.
There are 35 Palestinian workers left. Most of them work in the same shelter, says Poole.
UNDP also tries to help the daily lives of people living in extremely difficult conditions in other ways.
In Gaza, even in the middle of the war, there are non-governmental organizations that help, for example, women who have become internally displaced and people with developmental disabilities, says Poole.
According to UN estimates, around 80 percent of Gaza’s residents are currently unemployed.
A total of 5.5 million people live in the Palestinian territories, of which more than 2 million live in Gaza. According to Gaza health authorities, more than 43,000 people have died during the Gaza war that began a year ago.
Sarah Poole visited other Nordic countries last week. He will arrive in Finland in November.
The UN Development Organization is one of the targets that Finland supports, and the support has not been reduced.