Gaza Strip – Gaza Faces Daunting Reconstruction When Elusive Truce Struck

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    A Palestinian man looks at a neighboring house which witnesses said was damaged in an Israeli air strike that killed two children, in the northern Gaza Strip July 24, 2014. (REUTERS/Suhaib Salem)Gaza Strip – As the United States and regional powers strive for a ceasefire between Israel and Gaza militants, the impoverished enclave faces a daunting recovery, such is the scale of damage after almost three weeks of fighting.

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    Israeli artillery has shredded entire neighborhoods and air strikes have pounded the scant infrastructure that barely kept the crowded strip of 1.8 million people running even in peacetime.

    In 2012 the United Nations had already recommended urgent action to improve basic services for Gaza’s mushrooming population or the place would be uninhabitable by 2020.

    This month’s fighting can only have made that warning more pressing. At least 2,655 homes have been totally or severely damaged, while another 3,175 are damaged but not beyond use, the U.N. said.

    Bombs have lashed 116 schools and 18 health centers, stadiums, playgrounds, mosques, roads, phone towers, water lines, sewage treatment plants and police stations.

    The cost of rebuilding Gaza homes destroyed so far in Israeli bombing amounts to $800 million – the whole of Gaza’s annual budget – the Palestinian housing minister told Reuters.

    Mufeed Al-Hasayna said he could not yet calculate the damage to public buildings or infrastructure, adding that it had received precious little foreign aid to help recovery after past wars.
    Palestinian inspects a rubble of a destroyed house after an Israeli air strike in the east of Khanyounis town in the southern Gaza Strip on, 25 July 2014.
    “We cannot make a definite estimate under fire … Once the war is over, the ministry plans to call on all the countries of the world to assist in the rebuilding of Gaza,” he told Reuters.

    “We want real aid and not words. (At the end of another war in 2009) donors promised nearly $5 billion and not a penny arrived. We want real help for Gaza this time,” added Husayna, a political independent.

    Gaza medics say 816 Palestinians have been killed, most of them civilians, and over 5,000 have been wounded. On the Israeli side, 32 soldiers and three civilians have been killed. But this human tragedy has to compete with others to open the world’s purse strings.

    The Gaza head of UNRWA, the largest U.N. agency operating there, warned that donors’ attention had already been drifting from the seemingly intractable Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

    “It’s difficult to sustain emergency funding over time. We’re victims of the competition, and frankly there’s a level of humanitarian need unprecedented in modern history in the world, with the situations in Mali, the Phillipines, South Sudan, Syria and Iraq,” Robert Turner told Reuters.

    “And we’re all competing for the same funds,” he said.

    Cash is also painfully tight for the Hamas government. An Israeli-Egyptian blockade of the strip led to a $500 million shortfall in its proposed annual budget.

    The group, which is blacklisted as a terrorist organization by its two neighbors and many Western countries, hopes to win the opening of its border crossing with Egypt to goods and people in a truce.
    Palestinian inspects a rubble of a destroyed house after an Israeli air strike in the east of Khanyounis town in the southern Gaza Strip on, 25 July 2014.
    Hamas in April struck a unity deal with Palestinian rivals in the occupied West Bank, but the Western-backed Palestinian Authority there also struggles with a severe shortfall and despite the reconciliation pact has yet to exercise its authority in Gaza.

    OUR HOUSE

    Whole suburbs of border areas lying within a 3-kilometre buffer area on Gaza’s border lie abandoned, sealed into the combat between the guerrillas and the Israel Defense Forces.

    The area of the main power plant was hit by two missiles, leaving four-fifths of Gazans with only four hours of power a day. The sewerage and water infrastructure to two-thirds of Gaza residents have been affected by the bombing, leaving many without water and others wading through streets mired in sewage, according to British charity Oxfam.

    According to the Israeli media, the Israeli air force dropped about 3,000 tons of explosives on the Gaza Strip in the first 15 days of the conflict, including 120 tons in the border town of Shejaia alone, once home to 100,000 residents, which was the center of fierce battles when an Israeli infantry push began on Saturday.

    The fighting led to an exodus that has put intense strain on the cash-strapped U.N. and neighboring Gaza areas.

    Over 140,000 refugees from affected areas have fled to schools run by the U.N.’s main agency in Gaza, UNRWA, while thousands of others have moved in with relatives or friends.

    From a loudspeaker in a mosque in central Gaza, a cleric urged neighbors to provide clothes and blankets to needy refugees.

    Owners of supermarkets and vegetable stands said their stocks were put under stain by the influx of outsiders.
    Palestinian inspects a rubble of a destroyed house after an Israeli air strike in the east of Khanyounis town in the southern Gaza Strip on, 25 July 2014.
    “There’s no bread, no soup, and, sorry, no water bottles. Our brothers from Shejaia took it all,” said one supermarket owner in central Gaza.

    In the courtyard of Gaza’s main Shifa hospital, relatives of patients mixed with refugees too afraid to return to neighborhoods now turned to warzones.

    Um Ahmed Hassan covered her face in shame as she pointed to her two children, aged five and seven, sleeping on a nearby patch of grass – she had no blankets to cover them and hoped that her husband would return bringing word that a relative or friend had agreed to take them in.

    From local news footage from their street in Shujaia, they could see their house and those next to it had been destroyed.

    “Fadi and Ali each had his own room, his own bed and cupboard,” she said weeping.

    “At this time of day they would be playing in their rooms, in the house where they were born and grew up. Our house.”


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    15 Comments
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    Taxbucky
    Taxbucky
    9 years ago

    The Hamas leaders can easily cover these costs from their petty cash fund

    Benny
    Benny
    9 years ago

    That’s what happens when you let the terrorists run your place.

    I always tell many children don’t hang out with a thugs, one day someone will beat them up, I guess what – you will get the beating too!

    So please “poor palestinians”, just enjoy the fruit of your labor!

    bennyt
    bennyt
    9 years ago

    Soon, the US and other countries will pour billions of dollars into Gaza with most of the funds being diverted by Hamas so they can rebuild their weapons arsenal as well as new tunnels. If Israel does not finish off Hamas in this present operation, it will have to deal with a more dangerous Hamas down the road. World pressure against Israel is mounting and Israel should not yield until they have accomplished their mission.

    radrad
    radrad
    9 years ago

    “Mufeed Al-Hasayna (PA Housing Minister) said he could not yet calculate the damage to public buildings or infrastructure, adding that it had received precious little foreign aid to help recovery after past wars.”

    A little dose of reality: (a) You’re not the minister in Gaza; frankly Hamas chased your boys out – so cut out your fake belly aching. (b) Not a red cent arrived because most rational folk (including many Western gov’t and your brother arab gov’t) realized that Hamas were terrorists and weren’t buying into the poor Pal game (c) we now know that most of the “humanitarian” cement went to building war tunnels NOT infrastructure your so claim is so badly needed.

    So- SHUT UP

    honestbroker
    honestbroker
    9 years ago

    A small portion of this money will come from the spineless Europeans and America. This will immediately be pocketed by Mashal, Abbas and the rest of those mafioso.
    Then our Israeli bretheran will have their arms twisted to supply the rest , which will be pocketed by the same thugs
    Your average Palestinian will continue to live in abject poverty

    fruppy
    fruppy
    9 years ago

    It reminds me of the kid who killed his parents, and when it was time to come in front of the judge for sentencing, he asked for leniency since he was an orphan.

    Geulah
    Geulah
    9 years ago

    Reparations are only valid in a war situation. Our generosity has limits and Congress should act only with extreme discretion. Let the EU and UAE pay to rebuild Gaza for Hamas, they’re the ones with all the concern.

    Phineas
    Phineas
    9 years ago

    If money is sent to Gaza and the spending is supervised by outside monitors, why not? Nothing wrong with actual rebuilding if that’s what the money goes to.

    PaulinSaudi
    PaulinSaudi
    9 years ago

    You are exactly right. If Israel does not finish Hamas now they will get more powerful. Since there is no sign the Israelis will finish them off, this is a most dangerous situation.

    9 years ago

    Congress should pass a law with NO VETO POWER that any money going to rebuild s/b only on houses without TUNNELS underneath and no $$$$ – only cinder-blocks

    9 years ago

    no US dollars until all TUNNELS & ROCKETS are destroyed, HAMAS is disarmed and run out of office

    Liepa
    Liepa
    9 years ago

    They can live in the caves, that would be luxurious for them since they act worse than the cavemen in their time.

    9 years ago

    “We want real aid and not words. (At the end of another war in 2009) donors promised nearly $5 billion and not a penny arrived. We want real help for Gaza this time,” added Husayna, a political independent.”

    What a darn nerve! They deserve nothing ! Israel’s left-wing foolish politicians stupidly forced the Jewish residents of Gaza to withdraw in 2005, leaving beautiful land and greenhouses to the undeserving pali’s . And what did the savages do? Destroy it all, vote in a terror group with the intention of destroying the Israelis c”v, and wasted all the many millions of donor funds on weapons, rockets and tunnels. That’s gratitude for you. Not one country should send another dime to the terrorists! Let them go resettle in one of the 22 Arab countries (difficult as it may be, since they’re not wanted there).

    hershel
    hershel
    9 years ago

    What is the cost of building underground tunnels and building rockets? What is the cost of their standing army? Is this included in their budget?