Amount of rubble in Gaza is equivalent to 13 giant pyramids: UN
GENEVA
The U.N. development agency yesterday said that the amount of rubble in Gaza would stack 12 meters (about 40 feet) high in all of New York’s Central Park or be enough to build 13 giant pyramids in Giza in Egypt.
Jaco Cillers, special representative of UNDP administrator for a program to help Palestinians, said the latest joint estimate from the U.N., the European Union and the World Bank is that $70 billion will be required to rebuild Gaza.
That figure was tallied in September and up from $53 billion estimated in February.
“The estimated damage and rubble, throughout the whole of Gaza is in the region of 55 million tons,” he said.
“Another way to put it, apart from the example from Central Park that I mentioned, is [that it’s] also equal to 13 pyramids in Giza.”
“That is the amount and size of the challenge,” Cillers told a U.N. press briefing in Geneva by video from Jerusalem.
He said $20 billion would be needed in the next three years, and the rest would be needed over a longer period – possibly decades.
Cillers pointed to “good indications” from potential donors such as those in the Arab world, Europe and the United States, without specifying.
After the release of the last living hostages and Palestinian prisoners, the tenuous ceasefire in Gaza was holding yesterday while questions remain over other key parts of a U.S. plan for the region.
The long list of uncertainties includes when Hamas will return to Israel the bodies of the 24 hostages believed to be dead in Gaza and Israel’s insistence that a weakened Hamas disarm. The future governance of Gaza is unclear.
Israeli military said troops in the northern Gaza Strip had “opened fire to remove the threat” of several people approaching them yesterday across the “yellow line” and not complying with orders to stop.
