Half of Homes Destroyed During the 2014 Gaza Offensive Still Not Rebuilt

Gaza after Israel's latest war in the summer of 2014. (Photo: Ahmad Dalloul, IRIN)

Some 4,000 housing units have yet to be rebuilt in the besieged Gaza Strip three years after the 2014 Gaza offensive, the head of Palestinian Organization, The Popular Committee Against the Siege (PCS) said on Sunday.

PCS head, Jamal al-Khudari said that only half of the 11,000 homes destroyed during the war had been rebuilt, adding that work had yet to start on 4,000 units, while 1,500 more housing units needed additional construction.

He attributed the slow reconstruction process in large part to Israeli obstacles to important construction materials into the Gaza Strip, and also pointed at the slow disbursement of aid promised by international donors during the Cairo funders conference following the war.

Al-Khudari called on funders to fulfill their ethical and legal commitment to the Palestinians still homeless three years on, and stressed the necessity of lifting Israel’s decade-long siege of Gaza to lessen the humanitarian crisis in the besieged coastal enclave.

Earlier this month, United Nations Coordinator for Humanitarian Aid and Development Activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, Robert Piper said that the international community needed “to move fast” to stave off an already dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza, five years after the UN warned that the small Palestinian territory would be “unlivable” by 2020.

(Maan, PC, Social Media)

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