Gaza rubble becomes road material as UN clears access to services

The United Nations Development Programme said the effort was moving at about 1,500 tonnes a day across five crushing sites. It said more than 267 road segments had already been repaired with crushed debris, covering more than 80,000 square metres, a small but tangible step in a territory where movement itself has become a humanitarian issue.

Jaco Cilliers, the UNDP representative in Palestine, said the scale of the problem was overwhelming. “Rubble represents a major challenge in Gaza, where the estimated amount is between 55 and 60 million tonnes,” he said in a UN-backed account in September 2025. UNRWA later said more than 61 million tons of debris covered Gaza, underscoring how quickly the ruin had accumulated and how little room there was for delay.

The improvisation also pointed to the paralysis of formal reconstruction. Donald Trump’s Gaza plan, meant to build on an October Israel-Hamas ceasefire by surging aid and rebuilding the enclave, had not translated into large-scale recovery on the ground. Instead, Palestinians and UN agencies were trying to restore basic movement first, because debris removal was the prerequisite for any longer-term rebuilding of homes, roads and public services.

That work remained dangerous. Before rubble could be cleared, sites had to be checked for unexploded ordnance, and workers also faced the risk of stray fire near the armistice line. One worker said he had taken the job because he could not find another source of income, despite the physical danger. UN-backed estimates put the full clearance task at about seven years under accelerated conditions and with steady fuel supplies, a fuel stream that remains scarce.