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A Year On From War, Gaza Frustrated At Slow Reconstruction

Published

4 years ago

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Bulldozers remove the rubble of a building destroyed after an Israeli bombing in southwest Gaza

Only 200 out of 1,700 destroyed units have been rebuilt in Gaza, according to the Ministry of Public Works.

Gaza City – During last year’s Israeli offensive in Gaza, Imadeldin Abed’s apartment became a refuge for 13 people, gathering to try and avoid the bombs falling on the besieged Palestinian territory.

But on May 17, 2021, Abed said he received a phone call from an Israeli army intelligence officer, telling him his home was about to be targeted.

The apartment, in central Gaza City, was destroyed in the subsequent Israeli air attack.

At the time he received the call, Abed had been combing through the rubble of a relative’s home, which had been bombed, leaving dozens of civilians dead.

“I didn’t expect it would happen immediately to my home,” Abed told Al Jazeera.

“The Israeli officer told me that we should evacuate our building within 15 minutes. The officer stressed it was forbidden to take any of our things or furniture. We just ran out as we were.”

In May 2021, Israel launched a devastating 11-day military offensive on the blockaded Gaza Strip, the fourth major offensive launched by Israel on the Palestinian territory in 14 years.

The assault killed at least 261 people, including 67 children, and wounded more than 2,200, according to the United Nations.

Tel Aviv says the offensive was a justified response to rockets and other projectiles fired from the Gaza Strip and puts the blame on the territory’s rulers, Hamas.

Over the course of the conflict, rockets fired from Gaza killed 13 people in Israel.

Since the attack, Abed and his family have moved into a rented apartment with his married sons.

“We started our life from scratch. My apartment, and the apartments of my married sons, all of that disappeared in moments,” Abed explained.

“Here we are without furniture, clothes, or money. Everything was destroyed.”

The apartment Abed currently lives in is small and overcrowded, and he says that he has not received any help from international or governmental organisations.

“Over the past year, we have received many promises of reconstruction from the UNRWA and the United Nations to no avail,” said Abed, who is a government employee. “Equipping my apartment costed me about $80,000 and, in seconds, it evaporated in front of me.”

For Abed that loss has been difficult to contend with.

“We aren’t to blame for the war. We want our homes to be reconstructed as soon as possible. Enough of what is happening to us in the Gaza Strip,” Abed said.INTERACTIVE Gaza war anniversary

‘Gaza is completely forgotten’

Others in Gaza have had to deal with not just the material effects of the war, but the physical ones too.

Twenty-one-year-old Mohammed el-Sayed’s family’s apartment was hit during Israel’s offensive, leaving his brother, Ahmed, stuck under the rubble.

“I heard the moan of my brother Ahmed, who is two years older than me,” el-Sayed said. “I tried to remove the rubble above him to save him, but I couldn’t until the ambulance came and pulled him out.”

Ahmed’s condition was very serious. The bombing left him paralysed, unable to move his left hand. He also suffers from a laceration of the spinal cord.

“War created disasters in our lives, we were safe in our home, and suddenly we found ourselves injured and wounded, and we lost our home in moments,” el-Sayed said.

He explained that his father, Rashad, had spent five years preparing and furnishing their apartment.

“We only lived there for three years. Now, my father lost the house in which he put all his savings, as well as my brother, who lost the ability to move while he is still in the prime of his youth,” el-Sayed added.

“We live now in a rented house, which is not healthy for my brother. He does not have a private room that fits his special health condition, and there is no hope for future reconstruction.”

Like many in Gaza, el-Sayed complained that, despite promises and pledges, few reconstruction projects had been implemented.

“Last year was tough for everyone, we no longer have hope that things will improve,” el-Sayed said. “Gaza is completely forgotten.”

A building was destroyed during the latest offensive on Gaza.
Reconstruction vehicles remove the rubble of the al-Shrouq building, which was bombed last May

Reconstruction delays

The offensive last May was marked by its intensity, and the destruction of civilian homes and infrastructure.

Approximately 1,770 homes were destroyed or partially destroyed, according to the United Nations. In addition, another 22,000 units were damaged, resulting in the displacement of tens of thousands of Palestinians, according to authorities in Gaza. At least four high-rise buildings were levelled, and 74 public structures were also hit.

Naji Sarhan, under-secretary of Gaza’s Ministry of Public Works, told Al Jazeera he was frustrated at the delay in reconstructing Gaza.

“Unfortunately, a year has passed since the May offensive, though the process of reconstruction is still at the beginning,” Sarhan said.

According to him, only 200 housing units had been rebuilt, out of 1,700 units that were completely destroyed.

The situation was better when it came to partially destroyed housing units, with Sarhan saying that 70 percent had been rebuilt, while the rest needed additional funding.

According to Sarhan, the losses in the recent offensive are estimated at $497m, with $160m needed to rebuild the damaged or destroyed homes.

“The 14-year Israeli-Egyptian blockade on the Strip has imposed many obstacles on the reconstruction process,” Sarhan said. “Israel bans building materials coming through its border crossings, resulting in worsening living circumstances for Palestinians in Gaza.”

Sarhan added that there are approximately 1,300 severely damaged housing units and 70,000 with some damage to them whose construction has not been financed since the 2014 war.

However, despite that need, only Egypt and Qatar have pledged to support the reconstruction process, promising $500m each.

Israel did agree to remove restrictions on the entry of building materials into Gaza last August, but officials in Gaza argue that Israel continues to pressure donors to not fund reconstruction projects.

Sarhan, however, also pinned some of the responsibility on the UN, and specifically its Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA.

On April 25, dozens of Palestinians in Gaza protested in front of the UNRWA headquarters, accusing the agency of not fulfilling its duty to rebuild Palestinian homes destroyed in the 2021 and 2014 wars, as well as demanding that UNRWA Commissioner-General Philip Lazzarini retract his recent request that UNRWA projects be transferred to other international networks and institutions.

In turn, UNRWA responded in a statement that it had completed the rebuilding of “partially damaged houses,” and explained that it would begin to rebuild the completely damaged houses “within a week”.

UNRWA’s media adviser, Adnan Abu Hasna, said that the agency had “rebuilt around 7,000 partially-damaged houses and another 450 severely-damaged houses.”

For Sarhan, that is not enough.

“We call on UNRWA and all parties to abide by their commitments to reconstruct the Gaza Strip,” he said. “Life has completely halted in the Strip and people are in dire need of assistance, and to have their homes rebuilt.”

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA
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Foreign

Israel’s War On Gaza: List of Key Events, Day 101

Published

3 years ago

on

15th January 2024

By

Israel's war on Gaza: List of key events, day 101 | Israel War on Gaza News | Al Jazeera

Dozens of Palestinians killed in overnight Israeli strikes in central and south Gaza as Red Sea tensions rise.

Here’s how things stand on Monday, January 15, 2024:

Latest updates and human impact

  • Israeli attacks continue unabated overnight killing and wounding dozens of civilians in central and southern Gaza. At least 22 people were killed and a large number injured as a result of Israeli forces targeting al-Thalatheni Street in the central Gaza Strip.
  • Yemen’s Houthi rebels fired an antiship cruise missile toward an American destroyer in the Red Sea, which was shot down by a US fighter jet, announced US Central Command (CENTCOM) on X.
  • This was the first US-acknowledged Houthi attack since the US strikes on Yemen on Friday.
  • Hamas released a 37-second video showing three Israeli captives held in Gaza on Sunday, saying they would reveal the fate of the captives on Monday and urging the Israeli government to stop the offensive.
  • The Israeli military says it has shifted to a new phase of the war focused on the southern end of Gaza, where almost 2 million internally displaced Palestinians are running out of safe spaces to shelter.
  • The Gaza Ministry of Health has said almost 24,000 people have been killed in the Israeli offensive. More than 60,000 people have been wounded in 100 days of war.

Diplomacy

  • Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that his country will pursue its war against Hamas until victory and will not be stopped by anyone, including the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
  • The White House said on Sunday that “it’s the right time” for Israel to scale back its military offensive in the Gaza Strip.
  • Egypt’s State Information Service (SIS) said in a statement on Sunday that one of the biggest obstacles to the timely delivery of sufficient aid to Gaza was Israeli inspection of the aid. The statement came after Israel blamed Cairo for the delay in aid delivery to Gaza during its defence at the ICJ.
  • US Secretary of State Antony Blinken posted on X on Monday, calling for the release of the remaining captives held in Gaza on the 100th day since they were taken by Hamas. He did not mention the Palestinian casualties.
  • Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong, who described herself as a “friend of Israel” to the press, will travel to Jordan, Israel, the occupied Palestinian Territories and the United Arab Emirates this week, her office said on Monday.

West Bank raids and violence

  • Israeli forces arrested 25 students staging a sit-in in protest against high tuition fees at An-Najah University in Nablus. Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut reported that the protesting students received a text message from Israeli forces telling them to “surrender now”.
  • Israeli forces have reportedly raided the family home of Nael al-Barghouti, the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner, in the village of Kobar, in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank.
  • The Israeli army said on Friday that it killed three Palestinian men who infiltrated a West Bank settlement and fired upon soldiers.
  • The Israeli military killed two Palestinians after accusing them of ramming their car through a checkpoint near Hebron.
  • Local sources reported that Israeli forces bulldozed two Palestinian-owned houses during a Sunday midnight raid in the city of Qalqilya, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
  • Armed Israeli settlers broke into the village of Burin, south of Nablus, and attacked Palestinian residents’ houses and properties after midnight on Sunday, Wafa reported.
  • “Violent raids and arrests have become part of the fabric of daily life in the occupied West Bank,” Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Jamjoom, reporting from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, said. At least 347 Palestinians have been killed and thousands have been arrested since October 7.

 

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES
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Foreign

Hamas Says Will Kill Hostages if Israeli Attacks On Gaza Civilians Continue

Published

3 years ago

on

10th October 2023

By

Flames and smoke billow during Israeli attacks against Gaza on October 9, 2023

Human Rights Watch terms Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant’s call for a ‘complete siege’ on Gaza a ‘war crime’.

The Hamas movement has threatened to kill an Israeli hostage every time Israel bombs a Palestinian home without warning as Israel mobilised some 300,000 reservists and imposed a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, denying the enclave’s millions of residents access to food, water and fuel.

The warning from Hamas came on Monday as the death toll from the armed group’s surprise weekend attack climbed to 900 in Israel and revenge attacks by Israeli forces on the besieged Gaza Strip killed more than 700 people and left some 3,700 others wounded.

Residential apartment blocks, hospitals, schools and a mosque have been among the sites attacked by Israeli fighter jets, artillery and drones, according to media reports and witnesses.

Hamas spokesperson Abu Ubaida issued the threat to kill Israelis from the dozens held captive by the armed group. He said an Israeli hostage would be killed for every Israeli bombing of a civilian house without warning.

Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said more than 100 people were taken captive by Hamas during the deadly cross-border incursion over the weekend.

As Israeli forces conducted intense retaliatory attacks on Gaza on Monday, Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant drew international condemnation by announcing a total blockade of the densely populated and besieged enclave, which is home to 2.3 million people.

Gallant said Israel would impose a “complete siege” on Gaza. “No electricity, no food, no water, no gas – it’s all closed.”

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “deeply distressed” by the siege announcement and warned that Gaza’s already dire humanitarian situation will now “only deteriorate exponentially”.

A mourner carries the body of Palestinian boy Saad Lubbad, who health officials said was killed in Israeli strikes, during his funeral in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, October 9, 2023. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
A mourner carries the body of Palestinian boy Saad Lubbad, who health officials said was killed in an Israeli attack, during his funeral in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on October 9, 2023 [Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters]

Guterres also said some 137,000 people were taking shelter with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) at schools across Gaza.

UNRWA said on Tuesday that almost 190,000 people have been displaced in Gaza amid the Israeli attacks and the figure is expected to grow further as the violence intensifies.

Nearly half a million people have also not received food rations this week in Gaza as UN food distribution centres have been forced to remain closed amid the Israeli onslaught, UNRWA said.

Human Rights Watch said Israel’s total blockade on the necessities of life for everyday people in Gaza was a war crime.

“Defense Minister Gallant’s statements are abhorrent,” Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

“Depriving the population in an occupied territory of food and electricity is collective punishment, which is a war crime, as is using starvation as a weapon of war. The International Criminal Court should take note of this call to commit a war crime,” he said.

Shakir also condemned the threat by Hamas to kill hostages, warning that such action was also a war crime.

“All hostages should be safely released to their families,” he said.

On the diplomatic front, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on Hamas and Israel to immediately end violence and protect civilians, the Egyptian presidency said.

Erdogan urged Israel against “indiscriminately” attacking civilians and delivered measured criticism of Hamas, urging both sides to respect the “ethics” of war.

The United Kingdom, French, German, Italian and US governments issued a joint statement on Monday recognising the “legitimate aspirations” of the Palestinian people and supporting equal measures of justice and freedom for Israelis and Palestinians alike.

INTERACTIVE_DEATH_TOLL_INJURED_ISRAEL_PALESTINE_OCT10_2023_0415
They said they would remain “united and coordinated” to ensure Israel can defend itself.

But the prospect that fighting could spread also alarmed the region and the world.

Lebanese armed group Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel in response to at least three of its members being killed in Israeli shelling of Lebanon.

Israel said one of its deputy commanders was also killed in an earlier cross-border raid from Lebanon.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

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Western Leaders Accused of Hypocrisy Over Response To Palestine, Ukraine

Published

3 years ago

on

10th October 2023

By

US President Joe Biden holds a bilateral meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the sidelines of the 78th United Nations General Assembly in New York City, the US, September 20, 2023

Social media users, including journalists and observers, are calling out what they call a ‘double standard’.

After Saturday’s surprise attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Israel, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took to the social media platform X to offer “condolences go out to everyone who lost relatives or close ones in the terrorist attack”.

He also stated, “Israel’s right to self-defence is unquestionable.”

Many world leaders, including US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, shared similar sentiments.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated, “Israel has the right to defend itself – today and in the days to come. The European Union stands with Israel.”

Accusations of Western ‘double standards’

Some social media users have criticised these statements, saying they highlight a double standard.

Ukraine’s right to defend itself is praised by most international leaders while Russia’s invasion is condemned, but commentators said the same cannot be said about Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

Aaron Bastani, a leftist British journalist, said on X that there’s a “clear double standard in endorsing terrorism against civilian targets in Ukraine … and condemning it by Palestinians”.

Many users said Western diplomats and media support the Ukrainians who defend their land, but label the Palestinians fighting against Israel as “terrorists”.

https://twitter.com/KhaledBeydoun/status/1710787817415082349?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1710787817415082349%7Ctwgr%5E6acf829869e993177f32aa38aa48c02f38cb7f61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F10%2F9%2Fwestern-leaders-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-response-to-palestine-ukraine

An illustration of a woman’s face, in which one eye is closed beside a Palestinian flag, and one eye open beside a Ukrainian flag, has been regularly shared as a symbol of the West’s alleged double standards in how the two conflicts are viewed.

https://twitter.com/OnlinePalEng/status/1710994682883273172?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1710994682883273172%7Ctwgr%5E6acf829869e993177f32aa38aa48c02f38cb7f61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F10%2F9%2Fwestern-leaders-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-response-to-palestine-ukraine

Clips also emerged on social media from a CNN interview with Mustafa Barghouti, the general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, in which he posed the rhetorical question, “Why does the United States support Ukraine in fighting occupation – while here they support the occupier, who continues to occupy us?”

It is not the first time Western nations have been accused of double standards in their stance on the Ukraine war.

Earlier in the year, Amnesty International published a report highlighting the West’s “double standards” on global human rights.

Agnes Callamard, Amnesty’s secretary-general, told Al Jazeera at the time that the occupation of Palestinian territory was a “particularly important one”.

“Without making any comparison between Russia’s aggression and Israel … it is clear the Palestinian people are under a regime of oppression – a regime of occupation and a regime of apartheid,” Callamard told Al Jazeera.

Over the last three days, X users recirculated earlier statements calling out what they called Western hypocrisy, sharing video by the Irish lawmaker Richard Boyd Barrett from March 2022 in which he berated the Irish government’s double standards regarding Ukraine and Palestine:

“You’re happy to use the most strong and robust language to describe the crimes against humanity of [Russian President] Vladimir Putin, but you will not use the same strength of language when it comes to describing Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.”

Barrett on Sunday again called out what he described as “shocking double standards of Western leaders supporting Ukraine resistance but condemning Palestinian[s].”

Meanwhile, others warned against comparing conflicts.

https://twitter.com/denfordauthor/status/1710993737738768607?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1710993737738768607%7Ctwgr%5E6acf829869e993177f32aa38aa48c02f38cb7f61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F10%2F9%2Fwestern-leaders-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-response-to-palestine-ukraine

And some cautioned that Hamas and the Palestinians should not be seen as one and the same.

Ukrainian footballer Oleksandr Zinchenko, who plays for Arsenal, posted on Instagram, stating he “stands with Israel”.

Zinchenko has been a vocal supporter of his home country in its ongoing defence against Russia, and he participated in a Game4Ukraine charity match in London earlier this year to raise money for Ukraine.

After online backlash, with some questioning an alleged double standard in his support of Israel, the footballer removed the post and switched his social media account to private.

Several people claimed that Zinchenko’s football club, in not responding to his comments, was guilty of hypocrisy after they had distanced themselves from former player Mesut Ozil’s comments in 2019 over alleged human rights abuses against Uighur Muslims in China.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA
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