UN Trade Body: Gaza Post-war Reconstruction Estimated at $20 Billion

A picture taken from southern Israel shows destroyed buildings in the Gaza Strip on February 15, 2024. (Photo by JACK GUEZ / AFP)
A picture taken from southern Israel shows destroyed buildings in the Gaza Strip on February 15, 2024. (Photo by JACK GUEZ / AFP)
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UN Trade Body: Gaza Post-war Reconstruction Estimated at $20 Billion

A picture taken from southern Israel shows destroyed buildings in the Gaza Strip on February 15, 2024. (Photo by JACK GUEZ / AFP)
A picture taken from southern Israel shows destroyed buildings in the Gaza Strip on February 15, 2024. (Photo by JACK GUEZ / AFP)

Gaza will need a new "Marshall Plan" to recover from the conflict between Israel and Hamas, a UN trade body official said on Thursday, adding that the damage from the conflict so far amounted to around $20 billion.
Speaking on the sidelines of a UN meeting in Geneva, Richard Kozul-Wright, a director at trade body UNCTAD, said the damage was already four times that endured in Gaza during the seven-week war in 2014.
"We are talking about around $20 billion if it stops now," he said.
According to Reuters, Kozul-Wright said the estimate was based on satellite images and other information and that a more precise estimate would require researchers to enter Gaza.
The reconstruction will require a new "Marshall Plan", he said, referring to the US plan for Europe's economic recovery after World War Two.
UNCTAD already said in a report last month that it could take until the closing years of the century for Gaza's economy to regain its pre-conflict size if hostilities in the Palestinian enclave were to cease immediately.



Israeli Warplanes Strike South of Damascus 

Smoke billows from a strike in Damascus in May 2018. (Reuters file)
Smoke billows from a strike in Damascus in May 2018. (Reuters file)
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Israeli Warplanes Strike South of Damascus 

Smoke billows from a strike in Damascus in May 2018. (Reuters file)
Smoke billows from a strike in Damascus in May 2018. (Reuters file)

Israeli warplanes hit a town south of Syria's capital as well as the southern province of Daraa late on Tuesday, residents, security sources and local broadcaster Syria TV said.

Israeli planes struck the town of Kisweh approximately 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Damascus, a Syrian security source and Syria TV said. The security source said a military site was targeted, without providing further details.

Additional Israeli air raids hit a town in the southern province of Daraa, a resident and Syria TV said.

The Israeli military said in a statement later that it attacked military targets in southern Syria including headquarters and sites which it said contained weapons.

"The Air Force is attacking strongly in southern Syria as part of the new policy we have defined of pacifying southern Syria - and the message is clear: we will not allow southern Syria to become southern Lebanon," Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz's spokesperson said in a statement.

He added: "Any attempt by the Syrian regime forces and the country's terrorist organizations to establish themselves in the security zone in southern Syria - will be met with fire."

Residents of Damascus and Reuters reporters in the city heard the sound of airplanes flying several low passes over the capital and a series of blasts.

The bombardment came hours after Syria condemned Israel's incursion into the country's south and demanded it withdraw, according to the closing statement of a national summit.

Israel moved forces into a UN-monitored demilitarized zone within Syria after opposition factions led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a former Al-Qaeda affiliate, toppled former President Bashar al-Assad in December.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel will not tolerate the presence of HTS in southern Syria, nor any other forces affiliated with the country's new rulers, and demanded the territory be demilitarized.