A joint report by the World Bank and the United Nations shows that Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinians in Gaza has caused damages of around $18.5 billion to the coastal territory’s critical infrastructure.
The report published on Tuesday said the structural damage caused by the Israeli carpet bombing of Gaza has affected every sector of the Palestinian territory’s economy.
The damages are equivalent to 97 percent of the combined GDP of the occupied West Bank and Gaza in 2022.
It has found out that more than half of the territory’s population is on the brink of famine.
The report also said over 70 percent of the Palestinians in Gaza has been displaced due to the ongoing Israeli airstrikes and bombing.
The report, produced with the United Nations and the European Union, found structural damage affected “every sector of the economy,” with more than 70 percent of the estimated costs due to the destruction of housing.
“For several sectors, the rate of damage appears to be leveling off as few assets remain intact,” the Bank said.
An estimated 84 percent of Gaza’s health facilities have been damaged or destroyed. Three quarters of the population have been displaced by the war. One million people are without homes.
The report found that Gaza’s water and sanitation system had “nearly collapsed,” and was delivering less than 5 percent of its pre-war output.
The report covers only the first four months of the Israeli genocide in Gaza and embodies some aspects of the besieged strip’s humanitarian crisis as well.
The report called for “an increase in humanitarian assistance, food aid and food production; the provision of shelter and rapid, cost-effective, and scalable housing solutions for displaced people; and the resumption of essential services.”
Nearly 33,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its one-sided war on the territory in early October.
A humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding in Gaza, with unimaginable and unnecessary suffering.
Nearly all the 1.1 million children in Gaza are at imminent risk of famine. Families are struggling to find enough food and water, with children already dying because of malnutrition and disease.
Almost every child who has managed to survive the past four months of war is now in the line of fire in Rafah.
The majority of the displaced population – more than 1.3 million people – are trapped in an area of just 62 square kilometers.
