UNDP urges Israeli authorities to grant wider access for Gaza debris removal, housing and private-sector restart

UNDP Administrator Alexander de Crew, speaking from East Jerusalem at a United Nations press briefing, urged Israeli authorities to increase access to Gaza to allow accelerated debris removal, delivery of temporary recovery housing units and support for private-sector recovery. He said UNDP teams in Gaza have witnessed "very, very difficult circumstances" and appealed for operational and financial support.

De Crew framed UNDP's recovery work around three priorities: rubble removal, temporary recovery housing and restarting the private sector. "At the current pace, it will take us 7 years to remove all the, all the rubble," he said, adding that UN teams have completed roughly "05%" of rubble removal (transcript phrasing) and that 90% of Gaza residents "live in the middle of that, of that rubble," raising both public-health and explosive-hazard concerns. He asked for increased capacity and authority to scale debris clearance and recycling.

On shelter, de Crew said the UNDP program supplies "recovery housing units," which he distinguished from full reconstruction: "We have been able to build 500 of these. We have 4,000 which are ready," he said, while stressing that needs are far larger. The transcript records his phrasing as "Between 200,300 units" when describing the broader need; that phrasing is ambiguous but indicates requirements on the order of hundreds of thousands of units.

De Crew also described private-sector restart and cash-for-work programs as a third recovery pillar, citing sectors such as food processing and construction where local activity could resume with modest investment. "What we did is... give an overview of where we see opportunities for investment," he said, noting that decisions "on whether to invest or not to invest, that is not our role."

In questions, Associated Press correspondent Edith Lederer asked what specific Israeli objections exist to bringing heavy equipment (for example, bulldozers) and more housing units into Gaza. De Crew said UNDP is in "continuous discussions" with Israeli authorities and that many restrictions are driven by "dual use" concerns — the risk that materials or equipment could be diverted to non-humanitarian purposes. He said UNDP tries to demonstrate and ensure that supplies have a single, humanitarian use.

When asked how current access conditions differ from what UNDP needs, a reporter from Arab News Daily (Efrem Khosafi) received a similar response: de Crew repeated that dual-use concerns limit deliveries and reiterated UNDP's request that organizations such as UNDP and other UN agencies be given the access necessary to provide humanitarian and recovery support. He said both operational and financial help is "welcome" and cited Gaza's population of about 2.2 million people living in dire circumstances.

On coordination with international funding efforts, when asked about a forum described in the question as the "Board of Peace" and large pledged sums, de Crew said that expanded humanitarian access was part of a second-phase ceasefire resolution and that UNDP would welcome measures that translate pledges into safer, predictable access. He emphasized that reconstruction — physical and social — should be led by Palestinians.

The briefing closed after roughly a dozen questions. De Crew repeated the central UNDP request: more sustained, verified access for materials, temporary housing and private-sector support to accelerate recovery for civilians in Gaza.