A Palestinian man walks past destroyed buildings in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, on Friday, April 26, 2024. Much of Gaza’s infrastructure has been rendered dysfunctional by the ongoing six-month war — including the banking system. - Photographer: Ahmad Salem/Bloomberg
ANKARA, April 27 (Bernama-Anadolu): The extensive amount of rubble left by Israel's devastating war in the Gaza Strip could take about 14 years to remove, a United Nations (UN) official said on Friday.
Pehr Lodhammar, an official with the United Nations Mine Action Service, told a briefing in Geneva that the war had left an estimated 37 million tonnes of debris in the densely populated territory, Anadolu Agency (AA) reported.
According to the media office in Gaza, Israeli attacks have destroyed as many as 70,000 houses, and damaged 290,000 others, rendering them uninhabitable. The structures hit also include government buildings, hospitals, schools, mosques, churches, and historical sites.
Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip since Oct 7 killing more than 34,000 Palestinians. The Israeli military campaign has turned much of the enclave of 2.3 million people into ruins, leaving most civilians homeless, hungry, and at risk of disease. - Bernama-Anadolu
