In the aftermath of the Israeli attack, a residential area in Gaza was left in ruins.
A report released today by the United Nations Development Programme and the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia estimates that the human development status of the State of Palestine could regress by more than 20 years, below the 2004 indicator for the first calculation of the human development index for the State of Palestine.
The joint assessment report, titled "The War in Gaza: Expected Socio-Economic Impacts on the Palestinian State," was originally published in November 2023, when it assessed the impact of the war on the Palestinian State and Gaza in the first three months. The updated report, published today, assesses the impact of six months and predicts what might happen as the conflict enters seven, eight and nine months.
The latest report warns of a sharp decline in the Human Development Index, the aggregate measure of well-being by UNDP. As the war in Gaza approaches its seventh month, the poverty rate in the Palestinian State continues to rise, reaching 58.4 percent, pushing nearly 1.74 million people into poverty, with a massive 26.9 percent drop in GDP and a loss of $7.1 billion compared to the 2023 non-war baseline.
"In such a short period of time, unprecedented human losses, capital destruction and a sharp rise in poverty rates will trigger a serious development crisis that will jeopardize the future of future generations," the report states. ”
Unlike previous wars, the destruction in Gaza today is unprecedented in scope and scale, and that, combined with the loss of homes, livelihoods, natural resources, infrastructure and institutional capacity, could have profound systemic implications for decades to come, the report argues. The assessment predicts that Gaza will be completely dependent on external aid on a scale not seen since 1948.
As of January 2024, the direct damage to Gaza's built infrastructure was about $18.5 billion, equivalent to 97% of the Palestinian state's GDP in 2022, the report said.
10,000 people are buried under the rubble
More than 10,000 people are believed to be buried under the rubble of Gaza, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said today.
Israel has continued to bombard "large parts of the Gaza Strip" from air, land and sea, with neighborhoods razed to the ground and hundreds of buildings destroyed, the agency said.
The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs quoted the Palestinian Civil Defence Authority as saying that the exhumation of bodies from the rubble was a huge challenge due to the lack of bulldozers, excavators and personnel.
"It can take up to three years to exhume the body using the original tools available," the agency said. Rising temperatures will accelerate the decomposition of corpses, potentially increasing the threat of disease transmission. ”
诱杀機器
As the devastating war in the Gaza Strip continues for nearly seven months, Gazans now face a new threat: booby-trap food, OCHA said.
"A 14-year-old boy from Khan Younis was seriously injured and amputated after his home was shelled by the Israeli army and opened a food jar containing a booby trap while searching for his belongings in his home," the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs quoted the Gaza authorities as saying. ”
The young victim who allegedly suffered the fatal injuries on Monday was just one of a "recently injured category", all of whom were injured by hidden explosive devices, OCHA said.
Experts from the United Nations Mine Action Service estimate that some 7,500 tons of unexploded ordnance could be scattered throughout the Gaza Strip, and that it could take up to 14 years for them to be cleared.
