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    Rebuilding All Destroyed Gaza Homes Could Take 80 Years, U.N. Report Says

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    Rebuilding all the homes destroyed by Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip could take until the next century if the pace of reconstruction were to match what it was after wars there in 2014 and 2021, according to a United Nations report released on Thursday.Citing data from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the U.N. report said that as of April 15, some 370,000 homes in Gaza had been damaged, 79,000 of which have been destroyed. If those destroyed homes were rebuilt at the same pace as they were after the two previous wars — an average of 992 per year — it would take 80 years, according to projections in the report from the United Nations Development Program and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia.The report detailed the war’s socioeconomic impact on the Palestinian population and said “the level of destruction in Gaza is such that the required assistance to rebuild would be on a scale not seen since 1948” to replace public infrastructure, including schools and hospitals.The report said that even if Israel were to allow five times as much construction material into Gaza after this war as it did after the war in 2021 — “the most optimistic scenario” — rebuilding all of the destroyed homes would still take until 2040. That projection does not account for the time it would take to repair the hundreds of thousands of homes that were damaged but not destroyed.The cost of rebuilding Gaza is increasing “exponentially” each day the fighting continues, Abdallah Al Dardari, the director of the U.N.D.P.’s regional bureau for Arab states, speaking over a video call from Amman, Jordan, said at a news conference on Thursday.Mr. Al Dardari said that before “some sort of normalcy” can be established for Palestinians in Gaza, an estimated 37 million tons of debris must be cleared to allow for the construction of temporary shelters and, eventually, the rebuilding of homes.The report also found that the unemployment rate for Palestinians across the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza surged to roughly 46 percent from about 26 percent after six months of war.Over those six months, poverty rates in the Palestinian territories more than doubled, to an estimated 57.2 percent from 26.7 percent. That means 1.67 million Palestinians were pushed into poverty after the war began, the report said. Its estimates were based on a poverty line of $6.85 a day.The effects of the war on Palestinians both in and out of Gaza “will be felt for years,” the report said. More

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      U.S. Considers Imposing Sanctions on Israeli Military Unit

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      Israeli leaders expressed alarm about the possible action by the Biden administration over rights violations in the West Bank.The United States is considering imposing sanctions on one or more Israeli battalions accused of human rights violations during operations in the occupied West Bank, according to a person familiar with the deliberations.Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on Saturday called the possibility of the Biden administration’s placing such sanctions “the peak of absurdity and a moral low” at a time when Israeli forces are fighting a war in Gaza against Hamas. Mr. Netanyahu said in a social media post that his government would “act by all means” against any such move.The news about the possible sanctions, reported earlier by Axios, came only a day after the House approved $26 billion for Israel and humanitarian aid for civilians in conflict zones, including Gaza. The sanctions, if imposed, would not hold up the military aid that was just approved in Congress.On Sunday, Palestinians in the West Bank went on a general strike to protest a deadly Israeli military raid at a refugee camp. At least 10 people were killed in the raid on Saturday, the latest operation in a sweeping economic and security clampdown in the Israeli-occupied territory.Since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed and detained in raids in the West Bank, which Israeli officials describe as counterterrorism operations against Hamas and other armed groups.The strike on Sunday “paralyzed all aspects of life” in the West Bank, with shops, schools, universities and banks shuttered, according to the official Palestinian news agency, Wafa. Public transportation also was halted.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      UN Report Describes Abuse and Dire Conditions in Israeli Detention

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      Gazans released from Israeli detention described graphic scenes of physical abuse in testimonies gathered by United Nations workers, according to a report released on Tuesday by UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees.Palestinian detainees described being made to sit on their knees for hours on end with their hands tied while blindfolded, being deprived of food and water and being urinated on, among other humiliations, the report said. Others described being badly beaten with metal bars or the butts of guns and boots, according to the report, or forced into cages and attacked by dogs.The New York Times has not interviewed the witnesses who spoke to UNRWA aid workers and could not independently verify their accounts. None of the witnesses were quoted by name. Still, some of the testimonies in the report matched accounts provided to The Times by more than a dozen freed detainees and their relatives in January, who spoke of beatings and harsh interrogations.Israeli forces have arrested thousands of Gazans during their six-month campaign against Hamas, the Palestinian armed group. The Israeli military says it arrests those suspected of involvement in Hamas and other groups, but women, children and older people have also been detained, according to the UNRWA report.The Israeli military and the Israeli prime minister’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the report. But asked about similar accusations of abuse in the past, Israeli officials have said that detainees are held according to the law and that their basic rights are respected.UNRWA staff gathered testimonies from more than 100 released Gazans arriving at the Kerem Shalom crossing over several months. Palestinian medics would occasionally rush freed prisoners who were injured or ill directly to area hospitals, the report said, adding that they sometimes bore “signs of trauma and ill-treatment.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Israeli Civilians Kill Two Palestinian Men in the West Bank, Officials Say

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      Israeli civilians fatally shot two Palestinians in the West Bank on Monday, according to Israeli and Palestinian officials, as tensions continued to spike in the Israeli-occupied territory.The Palestinian Authority Health Ministry identified the two men as Abdelrahman Bani Fadel, 30, and Mohammad Bani Jama, 21. The circumstances of their deaths near the town of Aqraba remained unclear.The Israeli military said the two men had been killed during a “violent exchange” between Israeli civilians and Palestinians that followed a report of a Palestinian attacking an Israeli shepherd. An initial probe indicated that the gunfire “did not originate” from Israeli soldiers, the military said.The two Palestinians appeared to have been shot by Israeli civilians on the scene, said an Israeli security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was still underway.The killings fed fears that the West Bank could become another front for a country already in its seventh month of war in the Gaza Strip.About 500,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank live alongside roughly 2.7 million Palestinians under Israeli military occupation. Since the war began on Oct. 7, more than 400 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces there and in East Jerusalem, according to the United Nations.Jihad Abu Aliya, 25, was killed in a mob attack, according to the village mayor.Nasser Nasser/Associated PressOver the past few days, a renewed wave of violence has swept through the West Bank.On Friday, a 14-year-old Israeli teenager went missing, prompting Israeli settlers to riot inside a Palestinian village, Al Mughayir. Jihad Abu Aliya, a 25-year-old resident, was fatally shot during a mob attack, according to the village mayor, Amin Abu Aliya.The teenager, Binyamin Achimair, was found dead on Saturday after an intensive search; Israeli officials said he had been murdered in an act of terrorism and vowed to track down the perpetrators. In response, Israeli settlers, some of them armed, conducted a series of mob assaults in Palestinian towns, torching homes and cars, according to Palestinian witnesses.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on Israelis to allow security forces to search for Mr. Achimair’s killers, but he did not denounce the mob attacks against Palestinians. Human rights groups have long charged that Israel turns a blind eye to settler violence and rarely brings perpetrators to justice.In footage distributed on Sunday by Yesh Din, an Israeli rights group that tracks Jewish extremist violence in the West Bank, hooded figures can be seen setting a car ablaze while Israeli soldiers watch nearby without intervening.Matthew Miller, the State Department spokesman, condemned Mr. Achimair’s killing in a statement on Monday. But he also said Washington was “increasingly concerned by the violence against Palestinian civilians and their property that ensued in the West Bank after Achimair’s disappearance.”“We strongly condemn these murders, and our thoughts are with their loved ones,” Mr. Miller said. “ The violence must stop. Civilians are never legitimate targets.” More

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      Tensions Flare in West Bank After Israeli Teenager Is Found Dead

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      The killing, which Israel called a “terrorist attack,” prompted rioting by Israeli settlers that killed one Palestinian and raised fears of a broader escalation.The disappearance and death of an Israeli teenager, whose body was found on Saturday in the West Bank, spurred deadly rioting by Israeli settlers in Palestinian villages, ratcheting up tensions even further in the occupied territory.Settlers unleashed a wave of mob violence in a Palestinian village near Ramallah on Friday and carried out mob assaults in at least two villages on Saturday, after the Israeli authorities announced that the teenager, Binyamin Achimair, had been found dead.The Israeli police said Binyamin, 14, had left a farming settlement in the West Bank to herd sheep on Friday morning but never returned. Israeli forces found his body on Saturday near the settlement, Malachei HaShalom, in the central West Bank.The second day of unrest erupted in the village near Ramallah, Al Mughayir, and another Palestinian village, Duma, an Israeli security official said. Israeli settlers, some of them armed, entered the villages, the official added. There were reports that the settlers had opened fire.The Israeli military said in a statement that dozens of Palestinians and Israelis were wounded during clashes at several locations across the West Bank on Saturday. It described them as “confrontations between Israeli civilians and Palestinians” in which “rocks were hurled and shots were fired.” The statement said the military and police worked to disperse the crowds.In Duma, the attackers “covered the entire village,” some of them armed, said Naser Dawabsheh, a resident. They set several buildings and cars ablaze, sending a cloud of dense smoke over the village, he said. Rather than dispersing the Israeli rioters, the Israeli military protected them, he added.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Palestinian Authority’s Government to Resign as U.S. Calls for Change

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      Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh of the Palestinian Authority, the body that administers part of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, tendered the resignation of his cabinet on Monday, according to the authority’s official news agency.The decision follows diplomatic efforts, involving the United States and Arab states including Saudi Arabia, to persuade the authority to overhaul itself in a way that would enable it to take over the administration of Gaza after the war there ends.But it was unclear whether the appointment of a new prime minister and cabinet would be enough to revamp the authority or persuade Israel to let it govern Gaza. President Mahmoud Abbas, the most senior leader of the authority, will remain in position along with his security chiefs, regardless of whether he accepts Mr. Shtayyeh’s resignation.Israeli leaders had strongly hinted that they would not allow the authority’s existing leadership to run Gaza. American and Arab leaders had hoped that new leadership might make Israel more likely to cede administrative control of Gaza to the authority.With no functional parliament within the areas controlled by the authority, Mr. Abbas has long ruled by decree, and he exerts wide influence over the judiciary and prosecution system.According to diplomats briefed on his thinking, Mr. Abbas’s preferred candidate for prime minister is Mohammad Mustafa, a longtime economic adviser who is considered a member of his inner circle. More

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      A Re-established West Bank Settlement Symbolizes Hardened Israeli Views

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      Homesh, one of the four West Bank settlements dismantled by Israel when it withdrew from Gaza in 2005, has taken on new importance since Oct. 7 and the war against Hamas.For an Israeli settlement that has become such a resounding symbol of religious and right-wing politics in the West Bank, Homesh is not much to look at.Three families live in tarpaulin-covered shelters full of bunk beds for some 50 young men, who study in a yeshiva that is a shabby prefab structure surrounded by abandoned toys, building materials and garbage.They live part time here amid the ruins and rubbish of a hilltop settlement ripped down in 2005 by the Israeli army and police. It is one of four West Bank settlements dismantled when Israel pulled all of its troops and settlements out of Gaza. Israel’s intention then, pushed by Washington, was to signal that outlying settlements too hard to defend would be consolidated in any future peace deal.The decision to dismantle them is now being challenged by the more religious and right-wing ministers in the government of Benjamin Netanyahu. They are agitating to settle more land in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and even remove Palestinians from Gaza to resettle there.Homesh, perched in the hills above Nablus, has become a symbol of their resolve.Early last year, the Israeli government decided to relegalize Homesh, but the Supreme Court then required the government to dismantle it once more and ensure that Palestinians who own the land on which it sits can reach it safely.Three families live in tarpaulin-covered shelters full of bunk beds.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Netanyahu Issues First Plan for Postwar Gaza

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      The proposal, which calls for indefinite Israeli military control and buffer zones in the territory, rankled Arab nations and was rejected by Palestinians. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel released on Friday his most detailed proposal yet for a postwar Gaza, pledging to retain indefinite military control over the enclave, while ceding the administration of civilian life to Gazans without links to Hamas.The plan, if realized, would make it almost impossible to establish a Palestinian state including Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, at least in the short term. That would likely accelerate a clash between Israel and a growing number of its foreign partners, including the United States, that are pushing for Palestinian sovereignty after the war ends. The blueprint for Gaza comes after nearly 20 weeks of war in the territory and a death toll approaching 30,000 people, at least half of them women and children, according to Gazan authorities.Mr. Netanyahu’s proposal for postwar Gaza was circulated to cabinet ministers and journalists early on Friday. He has laid out most of the terms of the proposal in previous public statements, but this was the first time they had been collected in a single document. The proposal also calls for the dismantling of UNRWA, the U.N. agency charged with delivering the bulk of the life-sustaining aid to the besieged territory. And it calls for an overhaul of the Gazan education and welfare systems, as well as buffer zones along Gaza’s borders with Israel and Egypt.The plan was circulated on the same day that American, Israeli, Qatari and Egyptian officials began negotiations in Paris over the release of hostages and a possible cease-fire. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Israel Steps Up Attacks in Gaza Amid Cease-Fire Talks

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      Strikes overnight killed nearly 100, seven of them in Rafah, as officials said there had been momentum on a deal to free some Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.Intense bombardment of a Gaza Strip city filled with refugees flattened a large mosque and killed or wounded scores of people on Thursday as Israel repeated its intention to push into the area with ground forces if Hamas does not release hostages before the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.Nearly 100 people were killed across the enclave from Israeli strikes over the past day, the Gazan health authorities said Thursday, bringing the total death toll after almost 20 weeks of war to nearly 30,000.Around half of the Gaza Strip’s population of 2.3 million people are crammed into the southern city of Rafah along the border with Egypt, where the strike on the mosque occurred Thursday. Wafa, the Palestinian news agency, reported that at least seven Palestinians had been killed overnight in Rafah and dozens more wounded.Israel’s preparations for an invasion of that area come as diplomats raced to forestall it, with Ramadan set to begin around March 10.President Biden’s Middle East coordinator, Brett McGurk, met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday for “a good couple of hours,” focusing on whether negotiators could “cement a hostage deal” according to a White House spokesman. Talks last week in Cairo for a hostage deal failed when Mr. Netanyahu withdrew his negotiators, accusing Hamas of refusing to budge on what he called “ludicrous” demands and pledging to press on with Israel’s offensive.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More