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

Two-thirds of Gaza’s pre-war structures – more than 163,000 buildings – have been damaged or flattened, according to UN satellite data. The UN estimates this has created 42 million tonnes of debris.

Palestinians searching through piles of rubble in central Gaza. Bloomberg

Mohammad Salem, Hatem Khaled, Emma Farge and Nidal al-Mughrabi

Oct 7, 2024 – 1.37pm

Email LinkedIn Twitter Facebook

Subscribe to gift this article

Gift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe.

Subscribe now

Already a subscriber?

In the ruins of his two-storey 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.

Reuters