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FACTBOX-Costs of war and recovery in Lebanon and Israel
09 Jul 2007 08:42:49 GMT
Source: Reuters
July 9 (Reuters) - The impact of the 34-day war that erupted between Israel and Shi'ite Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon a year ago is still reverberating in both countries.

Here are some facts about the consequences for both sides:

LEBANON

* CASUALTIES - Nearly 1,200 dead and 4,400 wounded, mostly civilians. The dead include about 270 Hezbollah fighters and 50 Lebanese soldiers and police, as well as five U.N. peacekeepers.

* DISPLACED - About 974,000 Lebanese fled their homes and 200,000 have yet to return. The government says 125,000 houses and apartments were destroyed or damaged. Some 60,000 foreigners were evacuated and many thousands more found their own way out.

* CLUSTER BOMBS - The United Nations says at least 929 Israeli cluster bomb strikes contaminated an area of 37 million square metres (400 million square feet). The cluster bombs and other unexploded ordnance have killed 30 people and wounded 209 since the war. De-miners have made safe 122,500 of an estimated 1 million cluster bomblets. They expect to clear all areas where cluster bombs have a direct impact on civilian life by end-2007.

* ECONOMY - The government has estimated direct war damage at $2.8 billion, and lost output and income for 2006 at $2.2 billion. The direct cost to the government was $1.75 billion.

- The economy, forecast to grow 5-6 percent in 2006, shrank 5 percent, with the tourism sector hard hit. The International Monetary Fund forecasts growth of 2 percent this year.

- Donors pledged $7.6 billion for reconstruction at a Paris conference on Jan. 25, but the bulk of the money was tied to economic reforms, which the government has failed to enact.

- Israeli bombing hit bridges, roads, airport runways, ports, factories, power and water networks, and military installations, as well as Beirut's southern suburbs and towns and villages in the south and the eastern Bekaa Valley.

- The government said in May it had spent $318 million on rebuilding and had received $707 million out of $1.3 billion pledged by mainly Arab donors. It had paid $181 million to people whose homes were destroyed or damaged. It had spent $54 million on repairing infrastructure and $42 million on displaced civilians. Qatar and some other state and private donors have funded reconstruction projects independently.

- Hezbollah says it has spent more than $300 million on compensation and reconstruction. The money comes from Iran, which has also funded its own reconstruction activities.

* ENVIRONMENT - Up to 15,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil spilled onto Lebanon's coast after Israel bombed a power station south of Beirut, causing a major ecological crisis. U.N. experts said a swift clean-up had limited damage to marine life.

ISRAEL

* CASUALTIES - 158 dead, most of them soldiers killed in Lebanon and including 43 civilians killed by Hezbollah rocket attacks. About 1,500 people were wounded in rocket attacks in Israel, and 450 soldiers were hurt in the fighting in Lebanon.

* DISPLACED - Some 300,000 Israelis fled their homes to escape rocket attacks on northern Israel and more than 700,000 took refuge in bomb shelters or concrete-reinforced "safe rooms". Most of those who left have since returned.

Some 2,000 homes and apartment buildings were destroyed, another 9,000 were damaged, and some 400 businesses and schools were damaged or destroyed by rocket attacks.

* ECONOMY - Israeli economists have estimated direct war damage at $3.5 billion, including losses in Gross Domestic Product, and in tourism of up to 37 percent in the period immediately after the war. GDP losses were due to business closures during rocket fire and military call-ups to the reserves.

A quarter of businesses in northern Israel were at risk of bankruptcy after the war. The Israeli Chamber of Commerce said their lost revenues totalled about $1.4 billion dollars.

* ENVIRONMENT - More than 3,000 acres of forest was torched and another 10,000 acres in parkland was destroyed by about 450 fires set by rockets. The cost of rehabilitating these areas has been estimated at $18 million.
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Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert speaks during a Kadima party meeting in Petah Tikva near Tel Aviv July 26, 2007.



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