Some 35 aid groups from around the world, including ActionAid and Oxfam, launch a joint call to end Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip.
“For a whole year the Israeli government has restricted basic and essential construction materials from entering Gaza,” says a statement signed by the NGOs and posted on the site of activist group Avaaz.
Last summer’s devastating war in Gaza caused mass casualties and destruction of homes. Israel attributes this to the practice of Gaza fighters of waging war from inside residential areas.
“Not one of the 19,000 homes that were bombed and destroyed has been fully rebuilt. One year on, around 100,000 Palestinians in Gaza are still homeless, hospitals and schools still lie in ruins, and whole neighborhoods have no access to running water.”
A Palestinian woman walks amid the rubble of buildings which were destroyed during the 50-day war between Israel and Hamas in the summer of 2014, in the village of Khuzaa, east of Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, June 1, 2015. (AFP/SAID KHATIB)
“Just five percent of the 6.7 million tons of steel bars, cement and aggregates needed to rebuild what was destroyed since the end of the war has been permitted to enter Gaza,” the statement says. “At this rate, it could take 17 years before Gaza is rebuilt.”
The NGOs acknowledges that Palestinian political parties had failed to reconcile and prioritize reconstruction, “and Egypt’s closure of its border has further limited supplies entering Gaza.” But they say Israel’s blockade was the main obstacle to reconstruction.
A petition launched by the NGOs has so far garnered more than 450,000 signatures from around the world.
— AFP
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