how big is the task of rebuilding Gaza?

As thousands of Gazans made the journey back to their neighborhoods in the wake of the ceasefire, many of them already knew that their homes were in ruins.

The prospect of rebuilding homes, businesses and all the institutions and services needed to return to normal life in Gaza is frightening by any standard: the United Nations estimates that Damage amounts to $70 billion.

As Professor Andreas Krieg, a Middle East security expert from King’s College London, says: “It’s worse than starting from scratch – here you’re not starting from sand, you’re starting from rubble.”

Jaco Cilliers, Special Representative of the United Nations Development Programme for the Palestinians, says that the level of destruction in the Strip “now stands at 84%. In certain parts of Gaza, such as in Gaza City, it is 92%.”

This damage created massive amounts of debris. Assessments by the BBC based on recent satellite data indicate that there may be more than 60 million tons of rubble waiting to be removed in Gaza.

Any post-conflict reconstruction process must begin with the removal of the remnants of war.

The millions of tons of rubble now littering the Gaza Strip are not just piles of concrete and twisted metal. It also contains human remains and unexploded bombs.

“From a safety and humanitarian perspective, the first thing you have to do is make the bombed sites safe,” says Philippe Bouverat, former JCB executive director.

This is followed by a process of sorting, separating and crushing the debris. After materials such as plastic and steel are removed, the remaining concrete can be ground and reused.

This will lay the foundations for construction, but construction efforts will require importing large quantities of materials.

“It will not be done by trucks coming across the border. The first thing we have to do is build a deep-water port, because then you can bring in thousands of container loads,” Mr Bouvirat added.

He adds that when sites are cleared, basic services such as water, sanitation and electricity can be restored.

Clean water is an urgent and essential need for the people of Gaza. According to UNICEF estimates, more than 70% of the 600 water and sanitation facilities in the region have been damaged or destroyed since October 7, 2023.

After the recent announcement of a ceasefire, Israeli soldiers stood in front of a sewage treatment plant in Gaza City that had been set on fire. The damage occurred shortly before the Israeli army withdrew from a location close to this infrastructure.

Wastewater treatment is critical to preventing sewage buildup and the spread of disease. Doctors said that Gaza suffers from high rates of diarrheal diseases that can kill children, and that there is a risk of cholera in some areas.

Through satellite images, damage to the vital towers of the Sheikh Ajleen wastewater treatment plant, which are the main components used to treat wastewater, can be seen.

There are six wastewater treatment plants in Gaza. “They are all damaged,” said Maher Najjar, deputy director of the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility, which oversees and manages repairs to Gaza’s water infrastructure.

He added that since the beginning of the war, repair operations have been greatly hampered by the immediate danger posed by Israeli air and artillery attacks and the lack of tools. Some facilities were attacked again after repairs.

The Israeli army said its actions were “based on military necessity and in accordance with international law,” as part of its attempt to prevent Hamas from “threatening the citizens of Israel.”

Besides facilities that treat wastewater, Gaza has separate plants providing clean drinking water that have also suffered severe damage.

Satellite images taken in April 2024 show that the seawater desalination plant supplying northern Gaza and Gaza City remains intact. But by early May, it was destroyed.

“We are talking about damaged water wells, damaged networks, tanks, and transmission lines,” said Mr. Najjar. “It is very difficult to know where to start. Initially, we need at least $50 million to restore about 20% of services to the population.”

“The total loss is about $1 billion, maybe more.”

Satellite images show the devastation in the Sheikh Radwan area, a neighborhood northeast of Gaza City.

In August, before the Israeli army occupied the city, which it described as Hamas’s “last stronghold,” many streets appeared largely intact. By last week, entire swaths of the neighborhood had been leveled when the Israeli army established a base.

Over the course of the war, UNOSAT estimates that a total of 282,904 homes and apartments across Gaza have been damaged or destroyed.

But these numbers are likely to be an underestimate, because they do not yet include recent military operations in Gaza City, such as the destruction that occurred in Sheikh Radwan.

The chart below shows how the rate of housing damage rose sharply in mid-2024 – coinciding with IDF operations in Rafah, which left much of the city in ruins. Another significant increase is likely to occur as a result of the occupation of Gaza City.

The Hamas-run Gaza City municipality said 90% of its roads were also damaged.

According to Shelley Culbertson, a senior policy fellow at the Washington-based RAND Corporation, rebuilding housing in Gaza “could take decades.”

She said: “After the Israeli bombing of Gaza in 2014 and 2021, the process of rebuilding housing was slow because Israel did not allow the entry of many building materials because they had dual purposes.”

“If we rebuild now the way they did in 2014 and 2021, it will take 80 years. If there is good planning, it may take less time,” she added.

“Good planning is to design camps that can be turned into neighborhoods and help people return to their damaged homes and rebuild them.”

Gaza’s energy system was under great pressure before the current war. Power outages were frequent, and most Gazans lived on limited hours of electricity each day.

Historically, most of Gaza’s electricity supply comes from power lines connecting it to Israel and the diesel-powered Gaza Power Plant, with some rooftop solar panels and public facilities added in recent years.

Since October 11, 2023, Gaza has experienced an almost complete power outage after Israel cut off external electricity. The only exception was the direct feed to the desalination plant in southern Gaza, which provides clean drinking water. Israel reconnected its feed to this station on November 14, 2024, then cut it again on March 9, 2025, before reconnecting it again.

Gaza’s power plant has been rendered inoperable due to fuel shortages, and solar facilities have suffered widespread damage.

With the grid largely down, basic services relied on a limited number of remaining diesel generators and solar panels.

A joint assessment conducted by the World Bank, the European Union and the United Nations earlier this year estimated that more than 80% of power generation and distribution assets have either been destroyed or no longer operational since the beginning of the war, at an estimated cost of more than $494 million.

The Gaza Electricity Distribution Company (GEDCO), the company responsible for managing electricity supplies throughout the Gaza Strip, says 70% of its buildings and facilities have been destroyed since October 2023.

At the end of last month, we verified a video showing the company’s headquarters being bombed.

In a statement following the event, Gedco said the attack “directly affected the company’s ability to manage its administrative and technical work.”

The satellite image below of the eastern Jabalia region shows how 4 square kilometers of crops – most likely olive and citrus trees – were wiped out over the course of the war.

A road or path built by the IDF passes through the devastated land, perhaps to provide access to the northern areas of nearby Gaza City.

The analysis, conducted by Professor He Yin of Kent State University, concluded that 82.4% of annual crops and more than 97% of tree crops across the Gaza Strip were likely to be damaged during the war up to August 10 this year.

The decline in agriculture, coupled with prolonged restrictions on aid, led to severe food insecurity throughout the conflict, culminating in the declaration of famine in Gaza City in September.

UNOSAT attributes this decrease to “the impact of activities such as demolition, heavy vehicle activity, aerial bombardment and other conflict-related dynamics.”

For agriculture to recover, the land must be cleared of unexploded bombs, shells and mines “very urgently,” says Mr. Bouvirat. “If they can grow their own crops, they can feed themselves, and the sooner we do that the better,” he says.

Nearly half of Gaza’s pre-war population was under the age of 18, so rebuilding schools is essential for any return to normal life.

School buildings became shelters for displaced Palestinians throughout the conflict, and were often targeted by Israeli army forces under the pretext that they house “command and control” centers for Hamas and its affiliated groups.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, UNRWA, which ran 288 schools in Gaza, says 91.8% of all school buildings will need “complete reconstruction or major rehabilitation work to be able to function again.”

Institutions of higher education were not spared either.

For example, in December 2023, Israeli forces bombed Al-Azhar University south of Gaza City. The site is now part of the Netzarim Corridor, one of several military zones established by the Israeli army over the course of the war.

The same fate befell Al-Isra University, less than two kilometers away. Which was demolished by IDF forces after serving as a temporary base for several weeks.