Speaking to journalists on Tuesday, he said the UN cannot operate at the scale required while movement restrictions remain in place.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
De Croo, who chose Gaza for his first overseas trip since taking office in November 2025, urged Israeli authorities to expand access for UN agencies and humanitarian organisations. He said this would allow teams to accelerate rubble clearance, deliver shelter materials, provide medical equipment and evacuate patients who cannot be treated inside the territory.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
During a visit to Firas Market in Gaza City on Monday, De Croo witnessed the effects of a two\u2011year collapse in basic services. The market had become a vast dumping ground for more than 370 000 tonnes of accumulated waste. UNDP bulldozers began clearing the site a week ago in an effort to restore it as an economic hub.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Speaking from Jerusalem after a three\u2011day mission to Gaza and the West Bank, De Croo described living conditions as the worst he had ever seen. He said only 0.5% of Gaza\u2019s rubble has been cleared since the war began.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the current pace, it will take us seven years to remove all the rubble,\u201d he said. \u201cWe need more capacity to do rubble removal and rubble recycling. Ninety per cent of the people of Gaza today live in the middle of that rubble, which is extremely dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Most Gazans are still living in makeshift tents. UNDP has begun replacing them with recovery housing units, with 4 000 ready for use, but up to 300 000 are needed.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
De Croo said security concerns raised by Israel are understood but should not be used to deny access to UNDP, other UN agencies or international non-governmental organisations. He said expanded access is essential for stabilising humanitarian conditions and beginning meaningful reconstruction.<\/p>\n
–UN\/ChannelAfrica–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":15366,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-23906","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"The United Nations (UN) has the funding and capacity to expand relief and reconstruction efforts in Gaza, but insufficient access is preventing agencies from carrying out critical work, according to UN Development Programme (UNDP) Administrator Alexander De Croo. ","published_date":null,"news_description":"","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/23906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/23906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26738,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/23906\/revisions\/26738"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=23906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}