Palestinians wonder how to deal with tonnes of rubble

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 offensive.

“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 group Hamas.

The United Nations estimates there is over 42 million tonnes 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 offensive’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 Gaza 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.