Final UN/EU/World Bank RDNA: Gaza’s health system needs $10.03 billion to rebuild; 14% of workforce lost

Gaza’s health system will need about $10.03 billion over five years to recover and rebuild, according to a new joint assessment by the United Nations, European Union and World Bank that also found roughly 14% of the territory’s health workforce has been lost.

The estimate comes from the Final Gaza Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment, or RDNA, published in April 2026 and covering damage and losses from Oct. 8, 2023, to Oct. 9, 2025. The report is intended to guide recovery planning and donor support. Across all sectors, a UN/EU/World Bank press summary said recovery and reconstruction needs “are estimated at $71.4 billion over the next decade.” The assessment also said Gaza’s combined deprivations since October 2023 “have pushed back human development in the Gaza Strip by 77 years,” with its projected Human Development Index falling to 0.339.

For health alone, the RDNA estimates $1.39 billion in physical damage and $6.78 billion in economic and social losses. “Total recovery needs are estimated at US$10.03 billion over five years,” the report said. It found that 1,825 health facilities were partially or completely destroyed, including hospitals, primary health centers, clinics, pharmacies and laboratories. Hospitals accounted for the largest share of sector damage, at more than $829.6 million. The report also said fewer than half of hospitals and less than 38% of primary health care centers were partially functional. “Fourteen percent of the health workforce has been lost,” the RDNA said.

Those losses are reflected in worsening health outcomes. The assessment reported 86,000 cases of acute malnutrition among children under 5 in December 2025 and said risks remained high for an estimated 55,000 pregnant women. It also found that under-5 mortality had risen to 26.3 deaths per 1,000 live births, erasing 20 years of progress. Briefly corroborating the broader picture, the World Health Organization’s Eastern Mediterranean regional office said that through Oct. 2, 2025, it had recorded 825 attacks on health care and found only 14 of 36 hospitals, or 39%, were partially functional.

The health findings sit inside a much broader reconstruction bill. The RDNA said $26.3 billion will be needed in the first 18 months across sectors to restore essential services, rebuild critical infrastructure and support economic recovery. That makes the health-sector estimate not just a record of damage, but a planning figure for restarting hospital services, primary care and the workforce needed to run them.

The assessment is notable in part because it is not a standalone estimate from a single aid group. It is a joint technical exercise by the U.N., EU and World Bank, designed to provide a common baseline for recovery and reconstruction planning. Gaza’s health system was already fragile before October 2023, but the report offers a consolidated two-year picture of what has been destroyed, what has been lost and what it may cost to restore basic capacity.

The report also carries an important caveat: these are best-available official estimates compiled under severe access constraints, not a full on-the-ground census of every damaged site. The RDNA said it relied heavily on remote methods, including satellite imagery and social media analytics, and then triangulated those findings with ground inputs where possible. Even with that limitation, the assessment provides the clearest official measure yet of the scale of Gaza’s health-system collapse and the resources its recovery would require.