Hamas says hundreds of thousands of tents, trailers needed to shelter Gazans

PA estimates $6.5 billion needed for short-term housing; Egyptian sources say heavy machinery to clear rubble set to enter this week

Displaced Palestinians return to their homes in northern Gaza, January 29, 2025. (Khalil Kahlout/Flash90)
Displaced Palestinians return to their homes in northern Gaza, January 29, 2025. (Khalil Kahlout/Flash90)

With fighting in the Gaza Strip paused due to a hostage-ceasefire deal, the enclave’s residents are appealing for billions of dollars in emergency aid — from heavy machinery to clear rubble to tents and trailers to house people made homeless by 15 months of war between Israel and the Hamas terror group.

One official from the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority estimated immediate funding needs of $6.5 billion for temporary housing for Gaza’s population of more than two million, even before the huge task of long-term reconstruction begins.

US special Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff estimated last week that rebuilding could take 10-15 years. But before that, Gazans will have to live somewhere.

Hamas, the terror group that long served as the de facto government of the Strip and has moved quickly to reassert its control since the ceasefire went into effect last month, says Gaza has immediate needs for 200,000 tents and 60,000 trailers.

In addition, it says there is urgent need for heavy digging equipment to begin clearing millions of tons of rubble left by the war, both to clear ground for housing and to recover more than 10,000 bodies estimated to be buried there.

Two Egyptian sources said heavy machinery was waiting at the border crossing and was due to be sent into Gaza starting Tuesday.

Displaced Palestinians return to their homes in the northern Gaza as part of a hostage-ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas on January 29, 2025. (Khalil Kahlout/Flash90)

World Food Programme official Antoine Renard said Gaza’s food imports had surged since the ceasefire began and were already at two or three times the previous monthly levels.

‘Dual use’ goods face impediments

But he said there were still impediments to importing medical and shelter equipment, which would be vital to sustain the population but which Israel considers to have potential “dual use” – civilian and military.

“This is a reminder to you that many of the items that are dual use need also to enter into Gaza like medical and also tents,” he told reporters in Geneva.

More than half a million people who fled northern Gaza have returned home, many with nothing more than what they could carry with them on foot. Many were confronted by an unrecognizable wasteland of rubble where their houses once stood.

Displaced Palestinians return to their homes in the northern Gaza as part of a hostage-ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas on January 29, 2025. (Khalil Kahlout/Flash90)

“I came back to Gaza City to find my house in ruins, with no place else to stay, no tents, no caravans, and not even a place we can rent as most of the city was destroyed,” said Gaza businessman Imad Turk, who said his house and wood factory in Gaza City were destroyed by Israeli airstrikes during the war.

“We don’t know when the reconstruction will begin, we don’t know if the truce will hold, we don’t want to be forgotten by the world,” Turk told Reuters via a chat app.

Countries from Egypt and Qatar to Jordan, Turkey and China have expressed readiness to help, but Palestinian officials blame Israel for delays.

There was no immediate response from the Israeli military to a request for comment.

Destroyed buildings are seen in northern Gaza amid a hostage-ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas on January 29, 2025. (Khalil Kahlout/Flash90)

The war in Gaza began on October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists invaded southern Israel from the enclave, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.

Last month, a deal was reached between Israel and the terror group, which includes a ceasefire that went into effect on January 19.

Under the terms of the complex, three-stage deal, Hamas is to return the hostages, not all of whom are alive, in exchange for Israel withdrawing from Gaza and releasing over 1,900 Palestinian security prisoners, hundreds of whom were being held for deadly terror attacks.

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