Bringing color to Gaza’s caravans
Palestinians whose homes were destroyed during Israel’s assault on Gaza in 2014 are still living in temporary shelters.
Mousa Tawfiq-10 February 2016
For the past eight months, Muhammad al-Kafarna has been living in a caravan.
“Our nights are dark with no way of heating the caravan,” he said. “We don’t have warm water to cook or to wash. Winter is a nightmare for us.”
Al-Kafarna has lacked proper shelter since Israel’s attack on Gaza in the summer of 2014. Despite promises of international reconstruction aid, he and his family have to survive in a caravan provided by the local authority ofBeit Hanoun, a town in northern Gaza.
The caravans were painted by their residents with the support of the Tamer Institute for Community Education.Mousa Tawfiq
A civil servant, he has not been paid a salary since 2011 because of the political rift between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and the Hamas government in Gaza.
“I’m sinking in debt and can’t provide food for my eight kids and two wives,” he said. “Two of my sons have special healthcare needs but I cannot afford to pay for them. And the caravan is too small to accommodate us or our belongings.”
More than 140,000 homes of Palestinian refugees were damaged during the 2014 offensive. Of them, 9,000 homes were totally destroyed.
Rebuilding and repairing those homes has been slow — Israel has severely restricted the entry of essential construction materials into Gaza.
In November last year, UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, confirmed that only one house had been rebuilt by that time.
In a more recent report, UNRWA stated that 7,148 refugee families whose homes were completely destroyed still had not received any reconstruction aid. That was 17 months after the offensive had concluded. UNRWA has estimated that the total costs of reconstructing those homes would be $321.6 million.
The Tamer Institute for Community Education is trying to reach out to Beit Hanoun’s caravan dwellers.
Committed to free expression and the right to education, the group asked teenage girls living in the caravans about how some happiness could be brought into their lives.
