Palestinian government to set up national team for Gaza reconstruction

The project plans to restore basic services to civilians and rebuild infrastructure and housing

A Palestinian woman shelters in a makeshift tent in the rubble of a house destroyed in Israel's military offensive in Khan Younis, southern Gaza. Reuters

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Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa said on Tuesday that his government is forming a national team for Gaza's reconstruction that also aims to restore basic services and rebuild its economy.

In a government session in Ramallah, Mr Mustafa said the team, headed by the Ministry of Planning, will aim to return basic services to civilians in Gaza, develop plans for rebuilding its infrastructure and housing, and launch a plan for economic recovery. The Palestinian foreign ministry also said the government is working on several fronts to end the war in the enclave.

The UN said Gaza's economy has been almost completely destroyed with more than 200,000 jobs lost, about 90 per cent of the prewar workforce. It also estimated that 80 per cent of the enclave's gross domestic product has been lost since the conflict began on October 7 last year. In April, it said it would take until 2040 before all of the rubble in Gaza can be cleared.

Israel has placed restrictions on the types of material that enter the enclave in previous reconstruction efforts, under the pretext that they are of “dual use”.

In Gaza's north, dozens of people killed by the Israeli assaults on Jabalia camp could not be reached by emergency crews on Tuesday, as Israel continued its bombing, eyewitnesses told official news agency Wafa. Many families remain trapped there for a third day.

The Israeli army advanced in the northern part of Jabalia where 20 people were killed on Monday and a siege continues to starve people of food, water and shelter. “Jabalia is being exterminated,” Gazans said on social media as videos circulated of fleeing Palestinians being shot. One resident earlier told The National that Israeli drones and snipers were “chasing people wherever they went”.

Israel is considering a plan that would forcibly displace between 200,000 and 500,000 people living in northern Gaza, in an operation that would turn the area into a military zone, Israeli media and military sources said last month.

The death toll from Israel's strikes on the Nuseirat and Bureij refugee camps in the central Gaza Strip has risen to 27, Wafa reported on Tuesday.

On Monday and Tuesday, Israel also arrested at least 30 Palestinians on the occupied West Bank, and tightened security measures at several checkpoints. Twenty three people were detained from Al Khalil and others were taken from Nablus, Bethlehem and Jerusalem, Wafa reported. Israel has arrested more than 11,200 Palestinians from across the West Bank since October 7 last year.