MEZIESBLOG

Gaza will need a new “Marshall Plan” to recover from the conflict between Israel and Hamas, a UN trade body official has said.

Speaking on the sidelines of a UN meeting in Geneva today, Richard Kozul-Wright, a director at trade body UNCTAD, said the damage from the conflict so far amounted to around $20bn (£16bn). 

That’s already four times that of the seven-week Gaza war in 2014.

“We are talking about around $20bn if it stops now,” he said, basing his estimates on satellite images.

The reconstruction will require a new Marshall Plan, he said, referring to the US plan for Europe’s post-Second World War recovery.

UNCTAD said in a report last month that it could take until the closing years of the century for Gaza’s economy to regain its pre-conflict size if hostilities in the Palestinian enclave were to cease immediately.