After a year of war, Gazans wonder how to deal with tons of rubble

FILE PHOTO: A Palestinian walks past the rubble of houses destroyed by Israeli strikes, amid Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip (REUTERS)
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Updated 07 October 2024
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After a year of war, Gazans wonder how to deal with tons of rubble

  • Year of war generates at least 42 million tons of rubble
  • Piled up, rubble would fill Great Pyramid of Giza 11 times

KHAN YOUNIS: In the ruins of his two-story home, 11-year-old Mohammed gathers chunks of the fallen roof into a broken pail and pounds them into gravel which his father will use to make gravestones for victims of the Gaza war.
“We get the rubble not to build houses, no, but for tombstones and graves — from one misery to another,” his father, former construction worker Jihad Shamali, 42, says as he cuts through metal salvaged from their home in the southern city of Khan Younis, damaged during an Israeli raid in April.
The work is hard, and at times grim. In March, the family built a tomb for one of Shamali’s sons, Ismail, killed while running household errands.
But it is also a tiny part of the efforts starting to take shape to deal with the rubble left by Israel’s military campaign to eliminate Palestinian militant group Hamas.
The United Nations estimates there is over 42 million tons of debris, including both shattered edifices that are still standing and flattened buildings.
That is 14 times the amount of rubble accumulated in Gaza between 2008 and the war’s start a year ago, and over five times the amount left by the 2016-17 Battle of Mosul in Iraq, the UN said.
Piled up, it would fill the Great Pyramid of Giza — Egypt’s largest — 11 times. And it is growing daily.
The UN is trying to help as Gazan authorities consider how to deal with the rubble, three UN officials said.
A UN-led Debris Management Working Group plans a pilot project with Palestinian authorities in Khan Younis and the central Gazan city of Deir El-Balah to start clearing roadside debris this month.
“The challenges are huge,” said Alessandro Mrakic, the Gaza Office head for the United Nations’ Development Programme (UNDP) which is co-chairing the working group. “It’s going to be a massive operation, but at the same time, it’s important that we start now.”
Israel’s military has said Hamas fighters hide among civilians and that it will strike them wherever they emerge, while also trying to avoid harming civilians.
Asked about the debris, Israel’s military unit COGAT said it aimed to improve waste-handling and would work with the UN to expand those efforts. Mrakic said coordination with Israel was excellent but detailed discussions on future plans were yet to take place.

Tents amid the ruins
Israel began its offensive after Hamas militants entered Israel on Oct. 7 last year, killed about 1,200 Israelis and took over 250 people hostage.
Nearly 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in a year of conflict, Palestinian health authorities say.
On the ground, wreckage is piled high above pedestrians and donkey carts on dusty narrow paths that were once busy roads.
“Who is going to come here and clear the rubble for us? No-one. Therefore, we did that ourselves,” taxi driver Yusri Abu Shabab said, having cleared enough debris from his Khan Younis home to erect a tent.
Two-thirds of Gaza’s pre-war structures — over 163,000 buildings — have been damaged or flattened, according to UN satellite data. Around a third were high-rise buildings.
After a seven-week war in Gaza in 2014, UNDP and its partners cleared 3 million tons of debris — 7 percent of the total now. Mrakic cited an unpublished preliminary estimate that it would cost $280 million to clear 10 million tons, implying around $1.2 billion if the war stopped now.
A UN estimate from April suggested it would take 14 years to clear the rubble.

Concealed bodies
The debris contains unrecovered bodies, as many as 10,000 according to the Palestinian health ministry, and unexploded bombs, Mrakic said.
The International Committee of the Red Cross says the threat is “pervasive” and UN officials say some of the debris poses a big injury risk.
Nizar Zurub, from Khan Younis, lives with his son in a home where only a roof remains, hanging at a precarious angle.
The United Nations Environment Programme said an estimated 2.3 million tons of debris might be contaminated, citing an assessment of Gaza’s eight refugee camps, some of which have been hit.
Asbestos fibers can cause larynx, ovarian and lung cancer when inhaled.
The World Health Organization has recorded nearly a million cases of acute respiratory infections in Gaza in the past year, without saying how many are linked to dust.
WHO spokesperson Bisma Akbar said dust was a “significant concern,” and could contaminate water and soil and lead to lung disease.
Doctors fear a rise in cancers and birth defects from leaking metals in coming decades. Snake and scorpion bites and skin infections from sandflies are a concern, a UNEP spokesperson said.

Land and equipment shortages
Gaza’s rubble has previously been used to help build seaports. The UN hopes now to recycle a portion for road networks and bolstering the shoreline.
Gaza, which had a pre-war population of 2.3 million crammed into an area 45 km (28 miles) long and 10 km wide, lacks the space needed for disposal, the UNDP says.
Landfills are now in an Israeli military zone. Israel’s COGAT said they were in a restricted area but that access would be granted.
More recycling means more money to fund equipment such as industrial crushers, Mrakic said. They would have to enter via crossing points controlled by Israel.
Government officials report fuel and machinery shortages because of Israeli restrictions that slow clear-up efforts. The UNEP spokesperson said prolonged approval processes were a “major bottleneck.”
Israel did not specifically comment on allegations it was restricting machinery.
The UNEP says it needs owners’ permission to remove debris, yet the scale of destruction has blurred property boundaries, and some property records have been lost during the war.
Several donors have expressed interest in helping since a Palestinian government-hosted meeting in the West Bank on Aug. 12, Mrakic said, without naming them.
A UN official, requesting anonymity to avoid undermining ongoing efforts, said: “Everybody’s concerned whether to invest in rebuilding Gaza if there is no political solution in place.”

 

 


Egypt, Iran foreign ministers discuss rising Middle East tensions to avert regional war

Updated 24 min 24 sec ago
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Egypt, Iran foreign ministers discuss rising Middle East tensions to avert regional war

CAIRO: Egyptian foreign minister Badr Abdelatty has reiterated to his Iranian counterpart on Monday the urgency of de-escalating Middle East tensions to avert a regional war. 
During a phone call, Abdelatty discussed with Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi Egypt’s concerns of allowing the region to descend  into a full-scale regional war amid rising tensions in the Middle East.
Araghchi has met with Cairo officials last month in what was considered the first visit by a top Iranian official to the North African nation in around a decade.

The visit focused on efforts to deescalate Israel’s conflicts against Gaza and Lebanon.


Two Iran Guards killed in helicopter crash in province bordering Pakistan

Updated 04 November 2024
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Two Iran Guards killed in helicopter crash in province bordering Pakistan

  • “Ultra-light gyroplane” met accident while conducting combat operations in Sistan-Baluchestan
  • Province has experienced recurring clashes between Iranian security forces and Baloch rebels

TEHRAN: An Iranian Revolutionary Guards general and pilot were killed in a helicopter crash during an anti-terror operation in the country’s restive southeast, state media reported on Monday.

The “ultra-light gyroplane” of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps “had an accident while conducting combat operations” in a border area, IRNA news agency said.

It said the crash happened in Sirkan, a city in Sistan-Baluchistan province, and identified the dead as General Hamid Mazandarani, the commander of the Nineveh Brigade of Golestan province, and Hamed Jandaghi, a pilot of the IRGC ground forces.

Iran’s armed forces have been mounting an operation in the region since October 26, when 10 police officers were killed in an attack claimed by Sunni Muslim militants.

They have killed several militants and arrested others during the operation, according to Iranian media outlets.

Sistan-Baluchistan borders Pakistan and Afghanistan, and is one of the most impoverished provinces in the Islamic republic.

It is home to a large number of the Baloch minority, an ethnic group spread between Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan who practice Sunni Islam in contrast to the country’s predominantly Shiite population.

The province has experienced recurring clashes between Iranian security forces and rebels from the Baloch minority, radical Sunni groups and drug traffickers.

Helicopter accidents are a rare sight in Iran, but former president Ebrahim Raisi was killed when his helicopter crashed into a mountainside in May, triggering snap elections in the country.

The ultra-conservative president was accompanied by then foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and six other people who were all killed.


Jordan, UN aid body discusses urgent needs in Palestinian refugee camps

Updated 04 November 2024
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Jordan, UN aid body discusses urgent needs in Palestinian refugee camps

  • Israel’s actions against UN workers condemned by Jordan, other officials

AMMAN: Jordan’s Department of Palestinian Affairs and the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East held talks on Sunday to address the growing needs and challenges of the displaced and vulnerable in camps across the country.

During the meeting, Department of Palestinian Affairs Director-General Rafiq Khirfan condemned what he described as a “systematic campaign and political assassination” aimed at weakening UNRWA’s role, according to reports.

He pointed to Tel Aviv’s recent actions, including a decision by the Israeli Knesset to restrict UNRWA activities in the occupied Palestinian territories, such as East Jerusalem, and to withdraw diplomatic privileges from its staff.

Khirfan said the measures were a violation of international law and an attempt to undermine UNRWA’s mission of supporting Palestinian refugees, advocating for their right to return, and compensation.

Despite these challenges, Khirfan underscored Jordan’s continued commitment to backing UNRWA at regional and international levels, recognizing the agency’s critical role in providing services and stability for Palestinian refugees.

UNRWA’s Jordan Affairs Director Olaf Becker thanked Amman for the ongoing support of the agency’s work in the refugee camps.


Israel says top Hezbollah commander killed in Lebanon strike

Updated 41 min 59 sec ago
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Israel says top Hezbollah commander killed in Lebanon strike

  • Abu Ali Rida, the Hezbollah commander of the Baraachit area in southern Lebanon, was “eliminated” in an air strike
  • Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group said it fired rockets at the northern Israeli city of Safed

BEIRUT: The Israeli military said on Monday it had killed a top Hezbollah commander it accused of overseeing rocket and anti-tank missile attacks against Israeli forces in southern Lebanon.
Abu Ali Rida, the Hezbollah commander of the Baraachit area in southern Lebanon, was “eliminated” in an air strike, the military said, without specifying when he was killed.
Rida “was responsible for planning and executing rocket and anti-tank missile attacks on IDF (military) troops and oversaw the terrorist activities of Hezbollah operatives in the area,” the military said in a statement.
Israel has continued to pound Hezbollah targets in Lebanon since the war between the two sides broke out in late September.

Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group said it fired rockets at the northern Israeli city of Safed on Monday, the latest attack in more than a month of war.
Hezbollah fighters launched a “big rocket salvo” at the city, the group said in a statement.

In recent weeks, Israel has killed several of the movement’s militant commanders and top leaders, including former chief Hassan Nasrallah.
The war began after nearly a year of cross-border skirmishes between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, with the Lebanese group firing rockets into northern Israel almost daily in support of its ally in Gaza, Hamas.
Israel is fighting its deadliest war in Gaza against Hamas after the Palestinian militant group launched an attack on southern Israel on October 7 last year.


Iran executes Jewish Iranian man in murder case: NGO

Updated 04 November 2024
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Iran executes Jewish Iranian man in murder case: NGO

  • Arvin Ghahremani was hanged in prison in the western city of Kermanshah after being convicted of a murder during a street fight
  • Ghahremani’s mother, Sonia Saadati, had asked for his life to be spared

PARIS: Iran on Monday executed a member of the country’s Jewish minority who had been convicted of murder, an NGO said, at a time of rising tensions with Israel.
Arvin Ghahremani was hanged in prison in the western city of Kermanshah after being convicted of a murder during a street fight, said the Norway-based Iran Human Rights group.
“In the midst of the threats of war with Israel, the Islamic republic executed Arvin Ghahremani, an Iranian Jewish citizen,” said IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, adding the legal case had “significant flaws.”
“However, in addition to this, Arvin was a Jew, and the institutionalized anti-Semitism in the Islamic republic undoubtedly played a crucial role in the execution of his sentence,” Amiry-Moghaddam added.
The once sizeable Jewish community in Shiite Muslim-dominated Iran has dwindled since the 1979 Islamic Revolution but remains the largest in the Middle East outside Israel.
While Jewish Iranians were executed in the immediate aftermath of the revolution, the execution of a Jewish Iranian is unprecedented in recent years.
Ghahremani’s mother, Sonia Saadati, had asked for his life to be spared.
His family urged the victim’s relatives to accept blood money under Iran’s Islamic law of retribution (qesas), which permits this alternative.
The Mizan Online website of the Iranian judiciary confirmed Ghahremani’s execution, saying the victim’s family had “refused to give consent” to such a deal.
Iran and Israel have traded unprecedented air attacks this year following the outbreak of Israel’s wars with armed groups backed by the Islamic republic in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.