Gaza’s rubble has become one of the biggest obstacles to recovery from the Oct. 7 war. Tens of millions of tons of debris now cover the territory, much of it mixed with hazardous materials, unexploded ordnance and human remains. Clearing it will be a major challenge for any reconstruction effort.
The problem is not new. Multiple wars have added to Gaza’s debris, while efforts to manage and recycle it have struggled with a lack of equipment, funding and coordination. Officials and experts told MBN that the latest war made the problem worse on an unprecedented scale.
The problem was compounded by the political split that followed Hamas’s takeover of Gaza in 2007, which left institutions in the territory operating separately from the Palestinian Authority.
A joint assessment by the World Bank, United Nations and European Union calls rubble clearance an immediate priority for recovery and puts the cost of removing and managing the debris at more than $1.7 billion. Past cleanups also show what happens when Hamas, which the United States designates as a terrorist organization, runs the work: While in power, it allowed debris to be hauled and dumped, some of it into the sea, without coordination with the official authorities.
Today, the Palestinian Authority’s plan for the rubble includes building two artificial islands covering a combined area of about 14 square kilometers, a proposal still subject to a safety assessment.
The roots of the current crisis go back to the end of the fighting in 2009, when the United Nations Development Program estimated the volume of rubble at about 600,000 tons. Some 15,000 homes and other structures in Gaza were damaged or destroyed.
Some debris was removed, while other quantities were dumped along roads and on vacant land because there were no designated storage sites or centralized system for managing rubble.
There were also concerns about cancer-causing asbestos and unexploded ordnance. The U.N. development agency responded by drawing up a plan to sort, remove, crush, and store the debris.
In July 2009, it began removing about 420,000 tons under a project estimated to cost about $12 million.
But under the government of Hamas, rubble management did not develop into a sustained territory-wide program. Municipalities continued to clear debris and reopen roads according to their own limited resources.
After the 2014 war, the piles of rubble reached about 2 million tons, according to U.N. estimates. In November of that year, a U.N. project began to remove about 140,000 tons from the areas that had suffered the most damage.
Rubble-removal efforts expanded in the following years. The United Nations cleared more than 1 million tons, while property owners and private companies removed nearly another 800,000 tons.
Some of the debris was recycled after processing and used in road repairs and infrastructure projects.
A former official at the Palestinian Ministry of Public Works and Housing, who requested anonymity because he feared reprisal from Hamas, told MBN that the Palestinian Authority paid municipalities for the removal and transportation of rubble in coordination with international organizations.
But Hamas’s government handled the issue separately from the official authorities, the former official said. Rubble was often transported and disposed of without coordination with the Ministry of Public Works in Ramallah.
Some debris was also dumped indiscriminately into the sea. In Khan Younis, the construction of a marine structure without engineering studies eroded the beach and degraded the coast.
A chemistry professor in Gaza attributed the shortcomings in rubble removal to the absence of a comprehensive plan by Hamas’s government. He also requested anonymity out of fear of Hamas, but said scientific proposals aimed at reducing environmental and health risks had been ignored.
The professor also told MBN that efforts by U.N. and government organizations were hampered by the lack of advanced laboratories in Gaza and inadequate testing capacity to determine whether rubble intended for reuse met safety standards.
The massive Israeli response to Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack dramatically expanded the scale of the crisis.
A recent assessment by the World Bank, United Nations and European Union, which the Palestinian Ministry of Public Works is using as the basis for its plan, puts the amount of rubble generated by Israeli strikes at about 68 million tons.
The assessment, released in April 2026, said removing and managing the debris would cost more than $1.7 billion. It identified rubble clearance, particularly where human remains and unexploded ordnance are involved, as an immediate priority for recovery.
Ruqayya Abu al-Rub, head of the Gaza Reconstruction Team at the Ministry of Public Works and Housing, said dealing with that volume could take about five years if the heavy equipment required is available, with reconstruction proceeding at the same time.
Rubble removal has already begun in areas that can be reached with available equipment, said Abu al-Rub. But the machinery is limited and worn out, while spare parts and fuel shortages further slow the work.
Five crushers are currently operating across Gaza, distributed among the governorates.
Abu al-Rub said some community groups in Gaza continue to handle rubble independently. Some, she said, dispose of it by dumping it indiscriminately into the sea. The authorities have worked with municipalities to prevent such practices.
The government’s rubble-management plan calls for the creation of two artificial islands covering a combined area of about 14 square kilometers, one in the Gaza area and the other in the south. Facilities would be built on the islands as part of a proposal to expand Gaza’s land area.
Abu al-Rub said the plan is a government initiative being developed with U.N. institutions. Its implementation, she said, will be subject to safety assessment and international standards.
