(Adnkronos) – After two years of war, Gaza is buried under over 61 million tons of rubble. This is reported by United Nations data, analyzed by the Afp news agency. According to the UN’s Unosat satellite program, as of July 8, 2025, the Israeli army had damaged or destroyed approximately 193,000 buildings in the Strip, equivalent to about 78% of the structures existing before the start of the war, which broke out on October 7, 2023. Analysis of satellite images from September 23 and 23, 2025, over Gaza City shows even greater devastation, with 83% of buildings hit or razed to the ground.
The total volume of rubble is estimated at 61.5 million tons – a weight equivalent to 170 times that of the Empire State Building in New York – or 169 kilograms of rubble per square meter of Gaza’s territory. Approximately two-thirds of the rubble is believed to have been caused in the first five months of the war, according to the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep). Between April and July 2025, another eight million tons of debris were added, mainly in the southern part of the Strip, between Rafah and Khan Yunis.
In a preliminary analysis published in August, Unep warned that this rubble poses a serious health risk to the exposed population. It estimates, in fact, that at least 4.9 million tons could be contaminated with asbestos from older buildings, particularly in the refugee camps of Jabaliya, Nuseirat, al-Maghazi, Rafah, and Khan Yunis. The UN agency also believes that at least 2.9 million tons of rubble contain hazardous industrial waste from destroyed production sites.
