ANKARA
The scale of the destruction in the Gaza city after a month of Israeli airstrikes is laid bare in satellite photographs obtained by Anadolu Agency, which show that over 10,000 family homes were almost wiped out.
Photographs from Turkey's first high resolution electro-optical satellite GOKTURK-2, reveal how parts of the Gaza Strip and especially Gaza city have been flattened.
The Palestinian Federation of Industries (PFI) said the Israeli offensive on the blockaded Gaza Strip has left 134 factories (including 195 business buildings) completely destroyed, causing more than $47 million in direct losses and rendering 30,000 workers jobless.
"The Israeli army wanted to destroy the industrial infrastructure of the Gaza Strip," PFI Vice President Ali al-Hayek said in a statement.
It put the direct losses incurred by the factory owners at $47 million, adding that 30,000 Gaza workers are jobless.
This, the union added, has taken the unemployment rate in the Gaza Strip to around 55 percent.
"The Israeli occupation destroyed over 10,000 houses, roads, water and sanitation facilities and 12 water wells," head of Gaza municipality Nazar Hegazi told Anadolu Agency on Monday.
Much of the Gaza Strip's power grid network, include the power line that carries electricity from Israel, was damaged during the Israeli offensive.
Gaza's main power plant was also forced to shut down after it was targeted late last month.
Israel claims that its offensive – dubbed "Operation Protective Edge" aims at undermining rocket-fire capabilities by Gaza-based Palestinian factions.
According to Israeli figures, at least 64 soldiers have been killed in battles with Palestinian fighters in the Gaza Strip, the highest death toll for Israeli troops since the 2006 war in Lebanon, in which 119 soldiers were killed and three civilians by rocket fire.
The figures are likely to increase as more reports on damage caused by the Israeli attacks surface, it said.
By the end of July, over 95 schools in Gaza were being used as shelters for the nearly 190,000 of 215,000 people that had been displaced from their homes, according to the UN report.
The UN also reported that nearly 200,000 children were in need of direct, specialized psychosocial support because their families had experienced death, injury, or the loss of their home over the past five weeks.
The scale of the devastation has clearly been shown in different images, which were taken in different dates. The aerial pictures show the extent of the destruction of the city. GOKTURK-2 took images on January 31 and August 10 of this year.
With more than a month passed since Israel began its ongoing military offensive on Gaza, and with hundreds of thousands Palestinians displaced, figures have begun to emerge about how much rebuilding the battered and besieged Gaza strip will cost.
Some UN officials believe it will be $410 million. Palestinian Deputy Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa believes the cost will be far higher, putting the bill at $6 billion. The head of UN's Relief and Works Agency Chris Gunness however, says it is too early to know, or even estimate, the amount needed to reconstruct Gaza. He also believes that funding the reconstruction is not the main barrier to Gaza's recovery.
"The one thing we can be certain of is that we will need to lift the blockade if we are to rebuild Gaza," Gunness says. "If they fail to lift the blockade, the peace that we hope to achieve may be short lived."
At least 11,855 housing units in Gaza have been destroyed or severely damaged by Israeli attacks and at least 425,000 people are now displaced in emergency shelters or with host families, according to a report published by the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs on Sunday.
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