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The Israel-Hamas war has put back development in Gaza by 60 years and mobilising the tens of billions of dollars needed for reconstruction will be an uphill task, the United Nations said.Around two-thirds of all buildings in the Gaza Strip have been destroyed or damaged, and removing the estimated 42 million tonnes of rubble will be dangerous and complex, the head of the UN Development Programme told AFP.”Probably between 65 percent to 70 percent of buildings in Gaza have either been entirely destroyed or damaged,” Achim Steiner said in an interview at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in the Swiss ski resort town of Davos.”But we’re also talking about an economy that has been destroyed, where we estimate that roughly 60 years of development have been lost in this conflict over 15 months.”Two million people who are in the Gaza Strip have lost not only their shelter: they’ve lost public infrastructure, sewage treatment systems, freshwater supply systems, public waste management. All of these fundamental infrastructure and service elements simply do not exist.”And for all these towering numbers, Steiner stressed: “Human desperation is not just something that you capture in statistics.”- ‘Years and years’ -The fragile ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza war took effect on Sunday.Steiner said it was difficult to put a timeframe on reconstruction due to the “volatile” nature of the ceasefire, and because the UN’s immediate focus is on life-saving aid.”When we talk about reconstruction, we are not talking about one or two years here,” he said.”We are talking about years and years, until you even come close to rebuilding, first of all, the physical infrastructure, but it’s also an entire economy.”People had savings. People had loans. People had invested in businesses. And all of this is lost. So we are talking about the physical and economic, and in some ways even the psychosocial phase for reconstruction.”He said the physical reconstruction alone would cost “tens of billions of dollars”, and “we do face an enormous uphill struggle on how to mobilise that scale of finance”.- ‘Extraordinary’ destruction -The estimated volume of rubble may yet rise and will leave the reconstruction effort with vast challenges.”This is not a simple undertaking of just loading it and transporting it somewhere. This rubble is dangerous. There are often still bodies that may not have been recovered. There’s unexploded ordnance, landmines,” Steiner explained.”One option is recycling. With reconstruction, there is a significant degree to which you can recycle these materials and use them in the reconstruction process,” Steiner said.”The interim solution will be to move the rubble into temporary dumps and deposits from where it could then later be either taken for permanent processing or disposal.”In the meantime, if the ceasefire endures and firms up, Steiner said huge amounts of temporary infrastructure would be needed.”Virtually every school and every hospital has been either severely damaged or destroyed,” he said.”It’s an extraordinary physical destruction that has happened.”

Cars speeding along a smooth, black-coloured street in Nepal’s Pokhara are also driving over heaps of discarded plastic, transformed into an ingredient in road construction.Nepal’s urban areas generate about 5,000 tonnes of solid waste per day, according to the World Bank, of which 13 percent is plastic waste dumped in landfills.While high-value plastics, like bottles, …

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Hamas was set Saturday to release four Israeli women soldiers held hostage since its October 7, 2023 attack, under a truce deal in the Gaza war that is also expected to see a second group of Palestinian prisoners freed.Israel confirmed Friday that it had received a list of names of hostages who are due to return home, though neither side has specified how many Palestinians will be released from Israeli detention if everything goes to plan.According to the Israeli Hostage and Missing Families Forum, the women due for release are Karina Ariev, Daniella Gilboa, Naama Levy and Liri Albag.Albag turned 19 while in captivity, while the others are all now 20 years old.The exchange is part of a fragile ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas that took effect last Sunday, and which is intended to pave the way to a permanent end to the conflict.Mediators Qatar and the United States announced the agreement days ahead of US President Donald Trump’s inauguration, and he has since claimed credit for securing it after months of fruitless negotiations.Abu Obeida, the spokesman for the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, said on Telegram Friday that “as part of the prisoners’ exchange deal, the Qassam brigades decided to release tomorrow four women soldiers”.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office confirmed it had received the names through mediators.Palestinian sources told AFP the releases could begin before noon (1000 GMT), though neither Hamas nor Israel has issued a statement on expected timings.According to Israel’s prison service, some of the Palestinians released will go to Gaza, with the rest to return to the occupied West Bank.Families of hostages held in Gaza since Hamas staged the deadliest attack in Israeli history awaited the return of their loved ones after 15 months of agony.”The worry and fear that the deal will not be implemented to the end is eating away at all of us,” said Vicky Cohen, the mother of hostage Nimrod Cohen.In Gaza, families displaced by more than a year of war longed to return home, but many found only rubble where houses once stood.”Even if we thought about returning, there is no place for us to put our tents because of the destruction,” Theqra Qasem, a displaced woman, told AFP.- Three phases -The ceasefire agreement should be implemented in three phases.During the first, 42-day phase that began last Sunday, 33 hostages Israel believed were still alive should be returned in exchange for around 1,900 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.Three hostages — Emily Damari, Romi Gonen and Doron Steinbrecher — have already returned home.Ninety Palestinians, mostly women and minors, were released in exchange.The next phase should see negotiations for a more permanent end to the war, while the last phase should see the reconstruction of Gaza and the return of the bodies of dead hostages.During their October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Hamas militants took 251 hostages, 91 of whom remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military has confirmed are dead.The attack resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.Israel’s retaliatory response has killed at least 47,283 people in Gaza, a majority civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, figures which the UN considers reliable.- Return to the north -Bassem Naim, a member of Hamas’s political bureau based in Qatar, on Friday told AFP that Palestinians displaced by the war to southern Gaza should be able to begin returning to the north following Saturday’s releases.Hundreds of truckloads of aid have entered Gaza since the ceasefire began, but its distribution inside the devastated territory remains a huge challenge.The needs are enormous, particularly in the north, where Israel kept up a major operation right up to the eve of the truce.In hunger-stricken makeshift shelters set up in former schools, bombed-out houses and cemeteries, hundreds of thousands lack even plastic sheeting to protect from winter rains and biting winds, aid workers say.burs-jd/ser/phz/tym

Yemen’s Huthi rebels have detained another seven UN employees, the United Nations chief said on Friday, their latest move to target aid workers.Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for the “immediate and unconditional” release of all aid staff held in Yemen, which is suffering one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.”Their continued arbitrary detention is unacceptable,” Guterres said in a statement, adding that the United Nations was working to secure the release of those being held.The Iran-backed Huthis have detained dozens of staff from UN and other humanitarian organisations, most since the middle of last year.Guterres said the “continued targeting of UN personnel and its partners negatively impacts our ability to assist millions of people in need in Yemen.”Reeling from a decade of war, Yemen is mired in a humanitarian catastrophe with more than 18 million people needing assistance and protection, according to the United Nations.Following the latest swoop, the United Nations has suspended “all official movements into and within” areas held by Huthis, the office of the resident UN coordinator for Yemen said.The detentions come after United States President Donald Trump ordered the Huthis placed back on the US list of foreign terrorist organisations.Re-listing the Huthis will trigger a review of UN agencies and other NGOs working in Yemen that receive US funding, according to the executive order signed on Wednesday.- ‘Pressure Trump’ -Mohammed al-Basha of the Basha Report, a US-based risk advisory, called the latest detentions “an expected reaction” to the “terrorist” designation.”They assume that by detaining UN staff they’re going to be able to pressure the international community to pressure the Trump administration.”No immediate comment was available from the Huthis, who seized the capital Sanaa in 2014 and rule large parts of the impoverished country.The rebels, saying they are acting in solidarity with the Palestinians, have been attacking the Red Sea shipping route and firing on Israel since the outbreak of the Gaza war, prompting reprisal strikes from US, Israeli and British forces.With a Gaza ceasefire starting last Sunday, the Huthis have made conciliatory moves including releasing the 25-strong international crew of the Galaxy Leader, a cargo ship they seized in the Red Sea in November 2023.The rebels have also promised to tone down the Red Sea attacks and have said they would stop targeting Israel if it sticks to the ceasefire.The Huthis have been at war with a Saudi-led coalition since 2015, although hostilities have fallen sharply since a UN-brokered ceasefire in 2022.Since the start of the war, the Huthis have kidnapped, arbitrarily detained and tortured hundreds of civilians, including UN and NGO workers, according to rights groups.In June, the rebels detained 13 UN personnel, including six employees of the Human Rights Office, and more than 50 NGO staff plus an embassy staff member.They claimed they had arrested “an American-Israeli spy network” operating under the cover of humanitarian organisations — allegations emphatically rejected by the UN Human Rights Office.Two other UN human rights staff had already been detained since November 2021 and August 2023 respectively.In early August, the Huthis stormed the UNHCR office, forced staff to hand over the keys, and seized documents and property, before returning it later that month.

Wall Street stocks retreated Friday as the market’s latest rally lost steam, while the yen pushed higher after the Bank of Japan lifted interest rates.After a flattish open, major US indices tumbled into the red. The S&P 500 finished down 0.3 percent after closing at a record high on Thursday.”This is normal consolidation or profit …

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Hundreds of truckloads of aid have entered Gaza since the Israel-Hamas ceasefire began last weekend, but its distribution inside the devastated territory remains an enormous challenge.The destruction of the infrastructure that previously processed deliveries and the collapse of the structures that used to maintain law and order make the safe delivery of aid to the territory’s 2.4 million people a logistical and security nightmare.In the final months before the ceasefire, the few aid convoys that managed to reach central and northern Gaza were routinely looted, either by desperate civilians or by criminal gangs.Over the past week, UN officials have reported “minor incidents of looting” but they say they are hopeful that these will cease once the aid surge has worked its way through.In Rafah, in the far south of Gaza, an AFP cameraman filmed two aid trucks passing down a dirt road lined with bombed out buildings.At the first sight of the dust cloud kicked up by the convoy, residents began running after it.Some jumped onto the truck’s rear platforms and cut through the packaging to reach the food parcels inside. UN humanitarian coordinator for the Middle East Muhannad Hadi said: “It’s not organised crime. Some kids jump on some trucks trying to take food baskets.”Hopefully, within a few days, this will all disappear, once the people of Gaza realise that we will have aid enough for everybody.”- ‘Prices are affordable’ – central Gaza, residents said the aid surge was beginning to have an effect.”Prices are affordable now,” said Hani Abu al-Qambaz, a shopkeeper in Deir el-Balah. For 10 shekels ($2.80), “I can buy a bag of food for my son and I’m happy.”The Gaza spokesperson of the Fatah movement of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said that while the humanitarian situation remained “alarming”, some food items had become available again.The needs are enormous, though, particularly in the north, and it may take longer for the aid surge to have an impact in all parts of the territory.In the hunger-stricken makeshift shelters set up in former schools, bombed-out houses and cemeteries, hundreds of thousands lack even plastic sheeting to protect themselves from winter rains and biting winds, aid workers say.In northern Gaza, where Israel kept up a major operation right up to the eve of the ceasefire, tens of thousands had had no access to deliveries of food or drinking water for weeks before the ceasefire.- UNRWA’s fate clouds aid surge  -With Hamas’s leadership largely eliminated by Israel during the war, Gaza also lacks any political authority for aid agencies to work with.In recent days, Hamas fighters have begun to resurface on Gaza’s streets. But the authority of the Islamist group which ruled the territory for nearly two decades has been severely dented, and no alternative administration is waiting in the wings.That problem is likely to get worse over the coming week, as Israeli legislation targeting the lead UN aid agency in Gaza takes effect.Despite repeated pleas from the international community for a rethink, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which has been coordinating aid deliveries into Gaza for decades, will be effectively barred from operating from Tuesday.UNRWA spokesman Jonathan Fowler warned the effect would be “catastrophic” as other UN agencies lacked the staff and experience on the ground to replace it.British Foreign Secretary David Lammy warned last week that the Israeli legislation risked undermining the fledgling ceasefire.Brussels-based think tank the International Crisis Group said the Israeli legislation amounted to “robbing Gaza’s residents of their most capable aid provider, with no clear alternative”.Israel claims that a dozen UNRWA employees were involved in the October 2023 attack by Hamas gunmen, which started the Gaza war.A series of probes, including one led by France’s former foreign minister Catherine Colonna, found some “neutrality related issues” at UNRWA but stressed Israel had not provided evidence for its chief allegations.