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UN launches shelter assistance packages, warning it could take 20 years to rebuild Gaza

September 11, 2014 at 10:22 am

The Palestinian National Consensus Government’s Ministry of Public Works in collaboration with UNRWA and UNDP, having formed a shelter cluster, have announced the beginning of assessments in order to deliver shelter assistance packages for families displaced by the recent war in Gaza. They will be conducting assessments of those displaced people’s needs over the coming months and have pledged to help all families affected by damages to their homes.

At a press conference in the Gaza Strip the three bodies came together to announce the rollout of the assessment and assistance program. They noted that a total of 60, 000 homes had been affected by Operation Pillar of Defence during July and August of this year. 20, 000 of these homes were either destroyed or the damage left them uninhabitable. The remaining 40, 000 sustained minor damages requiring some modest repair.

The shelter cluster noted that there was an urgent need for funding for the shelter sector in Gaza in order to ensure that those displaced families whose homes were uninhabitable were able to find accommodation prior to the onset of winter. The shelter cluster have estimated that it will take 20 years to rebuild Gaza and that as a result of the severe restrictions imposed on Gaza by the siege, if the siege is not lifted further construction improvement will be severely hampered.

Images by MEMO Photographer Mohammed Asad