At least US$15 billion needed for rebuilding Gaza housing, says Palestinian official

At least US$15 billion will be needed to rebuild houses in Gaza, the head of the Palestine Investment Fund said on Wednesday (Jan 17), underlining the scale of devastation caused by Israel's offensive.

At least US$15 billion will be needed to rebuild houses in Gaza, the head of the Palestine Investment Fund said on Wednesday (Jan 17), underlining the scale of devastation caused by Israel's offensive.

Chairman Mohammed Mustafa said international reports indicated 350,000 housing units had been completely or partially damaged in Gaza.

Assuming 150,000 of these would need to be rebuilt at an average cost of $100,000 per unit, "that's US$15 billion for housing units", he said.

"We still didn't talk about infrastructure, we didn't talk about the hospitals that were damaged, the grids," he said at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

The figure points to reconstruction costs that will dwarf previous bills for rebuilding Gaza after earlier conflicts, with the war not yet over more than three months since it began.