Palestinians put Gaza reconstruction cost at $7.8 bln
Rebuilding Gaza will cost $7.8 billion, the Palestinian Authority said on Thursday, in the most comprehensive assessment yet of damage from a seven-week war with Israel during which whole neighborhoods and vital infrastructure were flattened.
The cost of rebuilding 17,000 Gazan homes razed by Israeli bombings would be $2.5 billion, the Authority said, and the energy sector needed $250 million after the Strip's only power plant was destroyed by two Israeli missiles.
"The attack on Gaza this time had no precedent, Gaza has been hit with a catastrophe and it needs immediate help because many things can't wait long," Mohammed Shtayyeh, a Palestinian economist and a senior member of the West Bank's dominant Fatah party, told reporters in Ramallah.
