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ugust 29, 2009 at 4:25 pm (Gaza, Mohammed Omer, Palestine)
It’s Tents for Most Homeless Families in Gaza, Prefabricated Huts for the Lucky Few
By Mohammed Omer
Hussein Shawish plays with his grandchildren inside their new mobile house in Gaza City, June 17, 2009 (AFP photo/Mohammed Abed).
DESPITE THE parade of various international diplomats and aid workers surveying the destruction in Gaza, virtually nothing has changed since Israel ended in January its Operation Cast Lead assault—peversely named after a line in a children’s Hannukah poem. Israel launched its assault on Dec. 27, 2008, during the Jewish religious festival.
Homeless families are distressed at the lack of progress in providing adequate and safe shelter, despite pledges made by international donors at a conference held in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt in early March.
“I am glad to be one of the first people in Gaza to receive a prefabricated hut,” said Issa Hamouda, who lives in Gaza’s densely crowded Jabalya refugee camp.
The 57-year-old Hamouda gestures toward some of his 20 children and grandchildren standing next to the rubble of what used to be their family home, where they would wake up every morning. “It’s only the size of one room,” he said of their new dwelling, it’s better than nothing.”
The prefabricated hut stands next to the rubble of his demolished house. “Each time I pass this tent and prefabricated hut,” Hamouda added, “it’s a symbol to remind us of the last offensive against us.”
Unfortunately, the tent and adjacent shanty hut his family has been forced to live in since January will not be coming down anytime soon.
Despite more than $4.5 billion in pledges made at the international donors’ conference to help rebuild the Gaza Strip, nothing seems to be getting through to Gaza so far. According to a senior official in Gaza’s de facto government, who noted that no funds have yet been received from donor nations, “There have been no serious attempts, by all sides, to plan the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip.”
In the weeks following the Israeli assault, aid groups set up tent camps in the hardest hit areas, but the prefabricated shelters did not arrive until June, when the Hamas-led government in Gaza began distributing 192 structures supplied by Turkey. The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) plans to supply an additional 1,200 prefabricated units in the coming weeks or months, according to Palestinian sources in Gaza.
The 40-foot-square pre-fabricated huts in which fewer than 200 families currently are living have no toilet, washroom, kitchen or private facilities. Indeed, they are little more than a simple tool shed. Yet, in Gaza, five months after Israel halted its attack, it passes for a home.
There are some Gazans who are not reduced to living in tents or huts: they are crammed into the homes of relatives and friends, or renting an apartment if an available one can be found. The latter, however, is a luxury most Gazans cannot afford.
Asked about the international pledges to rebuild Gaza, Hamouda replied, “These donor countries should first work to end the occupation, instead of offering to pay the cost of the occupation. If you want to give me dinner, don’t just give me a fish, but teach me how and let me fish. We don’t want to be dependent on other countries’ donations.”
Gaza has an abundance of human resources, including many workers and professionals, he added. “We could live much better just off our available resources,” Hamouda said, “with open borders and no more occupation controlling our lives.”
Israel’s 22-day attack on Gaza killed more than 1,400 Palestinians. Thousands more—the majority civilians—were injured. According to the latest U.N. survey, 3,500 houses were completely destroyed, 2,100 sustained major damage and 40,000 sustained minor damage.
Hamouda’s large family is the main reason he was one of the first people in Gaza to receive a shelter, which was assembled by the Ministry of Social Affairs. Most Gazans prefer to have the shelters situated near what used to be their homes.
Hamouda described how Israel targeted his house during Operation Cast Lead. First it was bombed by Israeli warplanes, and later demolished by Israeli bulldozers. “Who knows when my children will have a home again?” he asked. “All is demolished, nothing was left behind, including our trees and farm. Even the donkey was killed under the ruins of the house.
“We have no privacy and no protection from the heat of the day or the cold of the night,” he added. “We just want to live a normal life like people in other nations around the world.”
In Hamouda’s opinion, the visits to Gaza by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter were “a catastrophe. Neither Carter nor Blair came down to see our tragedy. Yet they allowed the occupation of our homeland when they were in office. I don’t expect anything good from either of them.”
Carter may not have visited the Hamouda family, but he denounced the deprivations facing Palestinians in Gaza as unique in history and asserted that they are being treated “more like animals than human beings” (see p. 17).
Meanwhile, Israel’s crippling siege of Gaza remains in place. Maxwell Gaylard, the United Nations resident and humanitarian coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, explained why—months later and despite donor pledges—shelters for Gaza’s homeless families are not being built: “It’s a simple reason,” the Jerusalem-based Gaylard said. “The government of Israel doesn’t allow construction materials into Gaza.
“I have replanted our trees three times,” said Hamouda, “but each time Israeli bulldozers destroy them. It makes me think that Israel doesn’t only consider human beings in Gaza as enemies, but also the trees.”
Several human rights groups and European governments have called on Israel to allow construction materials into Gaza, but so far there has been no lessening of the siege. “We have been in negotiation with the Israeli authorities, but there is no approval to allow construction materials into Gaza,” Gaylard said. “Gaza is a place which has enjoyed a good standard of living before, but not now,” he said. “Many are poor—they live on one meal per day—it is pretty miserable.”
Asked how long he thought the reconstruction of Gaza would take, the U.N. official could only respond, “I wish I knew. We have been constantly calling for the opening of the borders and stating that the Gazan people should not have to be subjected to this collective punishment.”
“We have built our houses with our sweat and blood,” said Issa Hamouda. Pausing, he added: “And we are ready to rebuild it again and again—but Israel should respectfully leave us alone, and we will manage with the resources we have available.”
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