Gaza postwar reconstruction estimated at $20 billion, says UN trade body

The damage from the conflict in Gaza so far amounts to around $20 billion, a UN trade body official says,

Speaking on the sidelines of a UN meeting in Geneva, Richard Kozul-Wright, a director at trade body UNCTAD, said the damage was already four times that sustained in Gaza during the seven-week war in 2014.

“We are talking about around $20 billion if it stops now,” he says.

Kozul-Wright said earlier that Gaza will need a new “Marshall Plan” to recover from the war, referring to the US plan for Europe’s economic recovery after World War II.

He says the $20 billion estimate is based on satellite images and other information and that a more precise estimate would require researchers to enter Gaza.

UNCTAD already said in a report last month that it could take until the closing years of the century for Gaza’s economy to regain its pre-conflict size if hostilities in the Palestinian enclave were to cease immediately.