Palestinians use Gaza rubble to restore streets as U.S. rebuilding plan stalls

Amid the wreckage of Gaza, Palestinians are turning the debris of war into the groundwork for recovery, crushing shattered concrete and twisted metal to repave streets destroyed during Israel’s ⁠two-year assault in what they hope will be the first visible step toward restoring their battered cities.

The effort, led by the United Nations Development Programme, comes as momentum fades behind US President Donald Trump’s Gaza plan, which was intended to build on an October Israel-Hamas ceasefire by ramping up aid and launching a full-scale reconstruction of the enclave.

For the UN and for Palestinians on the ground, the initiative is also a practical response to a vast emergency: using the machinery available inside Gaza to tackle towering piles of rubble that officials say are choking access to water wells and hospitals and hampering any meaningful economic restart.

UNDP has so far cleared roughly 287,000 ⁠tons of rubble

Turning debris into building material

“Beyond the collection (of rubble), we have started sorting, we have started crushing, and, as such, reusing it,” Mr Mrakic said. “We have used almost the same amount that we have collected.”

Mr Mrakic said UNDP crews, made up of Palestinian workers, were using the crushed material “to rehabilitate roads and pave areas for shelter and community kitchens”.

Alessandro Mrakic, who heads UNDP’s Gaza office, said the territory is confronting one of the biggest post-war clearance ‌tasks in recent memory

In Khan Younis in southern Gaza, Palestinians worked heavy machinery through vast mounds of broken concrete, sending clouds of dust skyward ‌while labourers sifted through bent steel and the rubble of shattered buildings.

Officials say the operation is being delayed by hazards buried under the debris. Before any rubble can be moved, sites must be inspected for ⁠unexploded ordnance in coordination with the UN’s mine service.

For Palestinian workers, those dangers are not abstract.

“I can’t find any other source ‌of income, that is why I do this work. (You) could get hurt,” said Ibrahim al-Sarsawi, 32.

He said ⁠the site’s ‌proximity to the Israel-Hamas armistice line meant he could be exposed to stray Israeli fire.

Workers sort through mangled steel and the remains of damaged buildings

Only the ‘tip of the iceberg’

UNDP says clearing Gaza’s rubble could take seven years, even under assumptions of faster, uninterrupted access to heavy machinery and steady fuel supplies — both of which are typically hard to secure in Gaza under Israeli restrictions.

Israel says those restrictions are driven by security concerns in ⁠Gaza, where it launched its assault after Hamas-led attacks on Israel on 7 October, 2023.

UNDP has so far removed about 287,000 ⁠tons of rubble — but, according to Mr Mrakic, that remains only the “tip of the iceberg”.

UNDP says Gaza rubble clearance could take seven years to finish

Rebuilding and recovery across the small territory will cost $71.4 billion over the next decade, according to a final Gaza Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment issued this month by the European Union, United Nations, and World Bank.

“The war is over, but (this) is the beginning of a new war,” said Sobhi Dawoud, 60, a displaced Palestinian living in a tent camp in Khan Younis.

That “new war”, he said, is one “of reconstruction, the beginning of removing the rubble, and (fixing) ‌infrastructure, electricity, water, sewage, schools, and streets”.