10 Feb 2025 Rebuilding Gaza demands restoration of people’s communication rights

The question has been raised internationally: who is going to rebuild Gaza and who will pay?

As yet, no one knows. There may be three options:

• Israel, in which case Israel would likely take over the land and sell it to settlers.
• Saudi Arabia, in which case it would be contingent on the two-state solution that Netanyahu and the far-right have resisted tooth and nail;
• or the USA, in which case the contracts would go to US firms as part of MAGA and the United States would angle for a permanent military base in the east Mediterranean.

That decision apart, the scale of the devastation and the urgency of the people’s needs are gigantic. The Guardian has pointed out:

There is the question of rubble. According to an estimate from UN-Habitat and the UN Environment Programme, there were 50m tons of rubble and debris in Gaza in December, 17 times more than all the debris generated by other hostilities in the territory since 2008.

With a quarter of all structures in Gaza destroyed or severely damaged – including schools and hospitals – and 66% of buildings sustaining at least some damage, the first issue will be to survey what is salvageable and identify the potentially 1 million people in need of long-term shelter and support.

Gaza’s water and sanitation system – on the brink of failure even before the onset of the war – has collapsed. It is estimated that up to 70% of water, sanitation and hygiene facilities in north Gaza have sustained damage.

In Gaza City, damage to those same facilities exceeds 90% including to the desalination plants in a coastal strip where residents rely on electric pumps to supply roof tanks and where the power system is also badly damaged.

Beyond the physical infrastructure there is other, less obvious, damage. More than half of Gaza’s critical agricultural land has been degraded by conflict and 95% of cattle have been slaughtered along with nearly half the sheep.

The picture is grim, but there is yet another issue. Gaza’s communications infrastructure is defunct, communication rights are non-existent, and dissenting voices have been silenced.

ARTICLE 19 has commented on a crisis that “has already taken a devastating toll on civilian life, including children. It has also resulted in an information blackout in the occupied Gaza strip with devastating consequences. For those caught up in the conflict, information can be as lifesaving as humanitarian relief…

Freedom of expression and unhindered journalistic reporting are an essential prerequisite to monitor and ensure respect of international humanitarian law, help prevent further violations and suffering and provide accountability for war crimes and human rights atrocities.”

It is vital to restore communication facilities to the ordinary people of Gaza as they begin the long struggle to reclaim their dignity as human beings, to rebuild, and to adapt to an uncertain future.

Photo: Palestinian children play in front of their homes destroyed by the Israeli army during its incursion into cities, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, January 15, 2025. Credit: Anas-Mohammed/Shutterstock