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)

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.