GAZA, November 17, 2015 (WAFA)
– As winter approaches, with the postwar reconstruction of Gaza continuing at a
slow pace, Palestinian homes and residential neighborhoods across Gaza were
flooded on Tuesday by heavy torrents of rainwater, according to local sources.
Witnesses said that as heavy
rains continued to fall incessantly during the past few hours across the
battered coastal enclave, many roads, neighborhoods and homes were flooded with
rainwater.
Several family homes and shops
in downtown Gaza were also submerged under the heavy downpours. No casualties
have been reported until the moment.
This comes amid a seemingly
slow pace of reconstruction of the war-battered enclave pledged by the
international community.
Gaza still suffers from the
repercussions of the Israeli aggression which took place in the summer of 2014;
the infrastructure along with thousands of homes were completely destroyed,
displacing thousands of families who up until the moment live in caravans on
the rubble of their homes.
On January 5, 2015, the Gaza
city municipality made an appeal to promptly begin with the reconstruction of
Gaza. An international aid conference to help rebuild Gaza was held in Cairo on
October 2014, where donors pledged $5.4 billion in aid to Gaza.
However, the reconstruction
work has been very slow and far behind the real needs of Gaza, due to Israeli
restrictions on the entry of materials and failure of United Nations rebuilding
mechanism.
In February 2015,
the UN News Center stated that, United
Nations agencies and offices were alarmed over the limited progress in
rebuilding the lives of those affected by last summer's fighting between
Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups in the Gaza Strip.
“Reconstruction and repairs to the tens of
thousands of homes, hospitals, and schools damaged or destroyed in the fighting
has been woefully slow.” the center quoted 30 international agencies during
last year’s winter.
The statement said
that, “Since July 2014, the situation has deteriorated dramatically.
Approximately 100,000 Palestinians remain displaced this winter, living in dire
conditions in schools and makeshift shelters not designed for long-term stay.”
The center reported
on the agencies stating that “the international community is not providing Gaza
with adequate assistance. “Little of the $5.4 billion pledged in Cairo has
reached Gaza. Cash assistance to families who lost everything has been
suspended and other crucial aid is unavailable due to lack of funds.”
According to a story
published on the Middle East Eye website late July, 2015, “the only repairs
made have been to homes which were partially damaged, while 18,000 totally
destroyed houses have remained in ruins.”
It said that, “Critics
of the [the nine-year-long Israeli] blockade have called for it to be fully
lifted to accelerate reconstruction, warning that an ongoing humanitarian
crisis could fuel further conflict.”
Meanwhile, the United
Nations' Mideast envoy in mid September, 2015, ‘gave a rare upbeat assessment
in the Gaza Strip, saying that reconstruction from last year's war between
Israel and Hamas militants is speeding up,’ reported media outlets.
“U.N. envoy Nikolay Mladenov said in
Gaza City that reconstruction has 'visibly accelerated' over the past
two months.”
M.N./T.R.
