Palestinians see $800 million in physical damage
Date: 17-Jul-02
Country: PALESTINE
Author: Nidal al-Mughrabi
Ali Shaath, deputy minister of planning and international cooperation, said estimates of direct or indirect losses suffered because of the violence - including potential losses from planned business projects - ranged up to $10 billion.
"These (Palestinian Authority) estimates reflect what our economy could have gained in two years, but now we have lost these figures forever. We will not be able to compensate them," Shaath told a news conference in the Gaza Strip.
Shaath said the figure of $10 billion included potential profits from projects ruined or undermined by violence, such as the construction of a seaport and use of natural gas resources. He did not say how the potential profits had been calculated.
The United Nations said in May it would take more than a year and $350 million just to rebuild the Palestinian schools, roads, water facilities, electrical grids and other public services that were smashed by an Israeli offensive across the West Bank earlier this year.
Nigel Roberts, World Bank director for the Palestinian territories, said the World Bank's estimate of physical damage from the start of the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation in September 2000 until the end of December 2001 was $305 million.
"So the figure of $800 million for physical damage (until now) sounds...quite reasonable to me," he said.
He said the World Bank's estimate for loss of income in the first 16 months of violence until the end of December had been $2.4 billion.
This figure represented the difference between the total income of individuals in the occupied territories and what that sum could have been if there had been no violence.
Roberts said an updated figure was likely to be released in August and added: "It will certainly be less than $10 billion."
Shaath was speaking at a news conference with Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), who is visiting Israel and the Palestinian Territories to assess environmental damages caused by the violence.
Toepfer is scheduled to meet Palestinian President Yasser Arafat as well as Israeli officials during his four-day trip.
Toepfer said the United Nations was gravely concerned by the damage to the environment in the occupied Palestinian territories. He said the aim of the U.N. assessment was not to aportion blame but to identify areas that need attention.
