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.”
skulz fontaine said,
August 29, 2009 at 20:30
Maybe Habitat for Humanity could extend a mercy mission to Gaza.
Fred in Boston said,
August 29, 2009 at 22:38
To solve this problem you must understand the true scope of it. Israel will
stop at nothing to drive all Arabs out of Eretz Israel. Land from Eilat to the
Litani river in Lebanon and from the Med to the Jordan river. This includes all of Gaza and all of the West Bank. They are addressing Gaza and the West bank in 2 different ways but the goal is the same. They will violate any agreement, tell any lie and commit any war crime necessary to achieve this goal. You cannot reason with them, you cannot trust them and you cannot negotiate with them. When David Ben-Gurion was asked in 1948 “what will become of the Palestinians?” he said “We will drive them out”. Nothing has changed. Israel, like the United states only understands one thing, force. The only way you are going to break the siege is to convince another nation, like Russia to provide navel escorts for supply ships to Gaza. They already have an air base in Syria. The rest of the Arab world needs to tie support for helping the Palestinians with continued cooperation with Russia over energy supply and transportation control in the region. The Israeli’s are real butch about bombing helpless civilians but they will not test Russian combat air patrols over the eastern Med, or Frigates accompanying freighters inbound to Gaza. In a bizarre juxtaposition the zionists who run Israel, many of whom descend from victims of WWII, have become the same Nazi’s that persecuted them and now persecute the true descendants of Jesus, the Palestinian Arabs as the new “Jews”. As Neville Chamberlain learned, you could not reason with Nazi’s,only force could stop them. We must learn that only force can stop the zionists. If we do not learn from history we will repeat it. The Nazi’s weren’t stopped until they started a world war. If the world does not stop the zionists now, they will do the same.
Lansing said,
August 30, 2009 at 02:53
As usual. Jewish silence around the world is deafening to the plied of the Palestians in the Gaza.
Those remaining silence are as guilty as the IOF Jews who created this calamity.
Holocaust Gaza said,
August 30, 2009 at 03:35
So what? Are we doing something against the Zio-Nazis? I don’t think so.
Those articles are worthless, useless and don’t accomplish anything. Why don’t change the style? Let’s say: “The heroic IDF fight on terrorism led to enemy homelessness”.
Cynic? Wait until this “beings” nuke Iran.
sleepup said,
August 30, 2009 at 05:15
Israel will not rest until EVERY Palestinian is driven into the red sea or a body bag.
No Name said,
August 30, 2009 at 11:23
I was speaking with a well educated lawyer (Yale/Harvard) who supports Israel. He was critical of the failure of other Arab states to help the Palestinians. “You mean that they should absorb the West Bank and Gaza folks and give that territory over to Israel?” Yes! That is exactly what he meant. Here is a guy that speaks magnificently but beyond the official party line is uninformed. His smooth delivery converts many non-believers. He said he and his folks private property rights in the ME go back 2000 years and they are “entitled.” He was stunned when I suggested he was no more genetically connected to the ME of Christ than any other middle European. He then brought the Spanish Inquisition into play. I wish he would let me shop in peace and keep his fantasies to himself. But, it is this misinformed viewpoint and skillful delivery that drives American policies.To support these fantasies American kids and treasure are committed to avoidable foreign wars to support our belligerent “indispensable ally.”.
Moshe said,
August 30, 2009 at 11:26
Good constructive comment Fred, coming up with a perspective on this nightmare, is part of the solution. They want Jerusalem at any costs and they will take it to fulfull their prophesies, and here is another clue to what they are – an indoctrinated death cult.
Tom Dennen said,
August 30, 2009 at 17:08
Barbarians.