RAMALLAH: Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa has announced the formation of a national team to reconstruct Gaza.
In a live broadcast from Ramallah on Tuesday, Mustafa said the state had already provided more than 400,000 people in Gaza with aid so far and would continue to do so.
The cost of reconstructing the Gaza Strip could reach $50 billion, according to a UN Development Program official.
Abdullah Al-Dardari, director of the UNDP Regional Office for Arab States, highlighted the critical situation following any potential ceasefire.
He emphasized that the most dangerous phase would be the day after a ceasefire, as displaced individuals and those who had lost their homes anxiously awaited the start of the reconstruction process.
War in Gaza broke out after Hamas provoked Israel on Oct. 7. Israel’s military assault on Gaza has killed nearly 42,000 Palestinians since, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
It has also displaced nearly all of the enclave’s 2.3 million residents, prompted a hunger crisis and led to genocide allegations at the World Court that Israel denies.
The war in Gaza has spread through the region, drawing in Iran-backed groups in Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq.
Israel has escalated ground and air offensives in recent weeks in Lebanon, killing hundreds, wounded thousands and displaced over a million.
Israel says it is attempting to dismantle Lebanese Iran-backed Hezbollah militants.
Iran launched a barrage of missiles against Israel this week to which Israel has not yet responded.
Israeli operations have also escalated in the Israeli-occupied West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza.
The Israeli military said on Tuesday it had launched targeted raids against Hezbollah in southwest Lebanon, expanding its ground operations along the country’s coastline after deploying more troops.
Last week, Israel launched what it called a limited ground operation into southern Lebanon after a series of attacks killed longtime Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and most of his top commanders. The fighting is the worst since Israel and Hezbollah fought a month-long war in 2006.
Beirut’s skyline lit up again late Sunday with new airstrikes, a day after Israel’s heaviest bombardment of the southern suburbs known as the Dahiyeh since it escalated its air campaign on Sept. 23.
Over the past year, the scale of the killing and destruction in Gaza has drawn some of the biggest global protests in years, including in the US, that saw weeks of pro-Palestinian college campus encampments.
Advocates have raised concerns over alarming antisemitic and Islamophobic rhetoric in some protests and counter-protests related to the conflict. Rights advocates have warned about rising threats against Muslims and Jews around the world.
