"A toxic mix of dust, ash, and other material from 15 million tons of rubble now blankets the territory and all who live there."
"In the months since Hamas attacked Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking hundreds more hostage, Israeli forces have pummeled Gaza in a campaign to dismantle the group, which the U.S. considers a terrorist organization. The offensive has killed 22,000 Palestinians and dealt a grievous blow to the territory’s fragile air, water, and land — and risks the long-term health of its residents.
The ruin dwarfs anything Gazans have ever experienced. The ongoing aerial, naval, and ground assault has by one United Nations estimate damaged or destroyed about one-fifth of the structures in Gaza. According to Thorsten Kallnischkies, a former disaster waste manager who has advised cleanups in 20 countries, 15 million tons of debris now litter the Gaza Strip.
The last major hostilities between Israel and Gaza, in 2021, left 1 million tons.
When these buildings, some 40,000 in all, were blown up, concrete, insulation, and other materials — not to mention residents’ possessions — were pulverized into toxic dust. The Jabalia refugee camp, for example, a sprawling neighborhood of apartment towers known to contain asbestos, has seen repeated battering.
Systematic research after the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States was among the first to link exposure to such a mix of detritus to pulmonary and respiratory disease and cancer. Public health experts say the death count from debris-related diseases stemming from the destruction in New York will soon exceed that of the day’s attacks, if it hasn’t already."
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