palestinians live with more dignity and with more hope, the cycle is likely to repeat itself. the u.n. is allocating more than several million for relief efforts. the palestinian officials estimate reconstruction will cost tens of millions of dollars. ben wiedeman is in gaza city. he joins us now. good to see you. how daunting and difficult will it be to rebuild gaza in the midst of the humanitarian crisis and a pandemic? reporter: it s going to be daunting, rosemary. given there s been an israeli egyptian blockade on gaza since 2007. it s always been difficult to get building material in. of course, money is, obviously, in short supply in this improvished strip of land where the unemployment rate is running high. and despite secretary blinken s cautiously optimistic words,
for traces of a life shattered. his aunt and three children were crushed to death when a bomb slammed into her home. because the bombing around us was so intense doors and windows were falling on us. we ran to be in a room, she recalls. the last bomb was on this house. she was able to crawl free. the people in this area are mostly farmers but their land often used by militants to fire rockets into israel. in the hospital plastic and reconstruction surgeon is conducting one of eight operations on this day. he first travelled to gaza as a young medical student in the 1980s and has come back regularly every since his task here never ending.
when it comes to the possibility of resolving this conflict and putting an end to this cycle of one war after another, most people here are deeply pessimistic. reporter: not for the first time and probably not for the last. gaza is it s over. for now. the rubble will be cleared and perhaps the damage repaired. yet one manmade catastrophe after another has taken heavy toll. not far from the wall separating gaza from israel, children of the extended family search for traces of the lives shattered. they had three children crushed to death when a bomb slammed into her home. because the bombing around us was so intense, doors and windows were falling on us.
no guarantee you will make it through the next says one gaza resident. there s no other option. we have to keep living. we have to rebuild it again and again until one day maybe we can be free. in the absence of some sort of resolution such is gaza s fate. of course some sort of resolution, many people here have long concluded that contrary to what secretary blinken is saying, this is not the two-state solution. the two-state solution, they have been trying to push it through for more than two decades and it has not worked and many people are thinking there has to be another way than going back and forth and doing the same thing over and over again, and somehow expecting a different result. rosemary? exactly right. b just ahead, intelligence about when and where the first
conflict. so you have a ton of it comes like an a disease. reporter: in this neighborhood, this person waits for a truck to take his furniture away. his home intact after bombs destroyed the buildings next door. it s now in danger of collapse. his struggle to push the boulder up the hill for it to roll to the bottom only to push it back up over again. the relief of surviving this war no guarantee you ll make it through the next, said the gaza resident. there s no other option. we have to keep living. we have to rebuild again and again until one day maybe we can be free. reporter: in the absence of some sort of resolution, such is