Suffering continues in Gaza Strip

Many Palestinians are still suffering from displacement as their homes were destroyed during Israel’s recent onslaught on the Gaza Strip, Press TV reports.

“We are Sawarka Bedouins. We lost our homes and farmlands (and) until now we haven’t received any aid. You are the first people to visit us here and through your camera we are urging everyone to help us,” said chief of the Sawarka tribe, Khalil Abu Shretih, in Gaza.

On October 14, Palestinian resistance movement Hamas called on UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to be accountable to the people in the besieged Gaza Strip who have been suffering the agony of a recent Israeli war.

Gaza’s Housing and Public Works Minister Mufeed al-Hasayna said, “Frankly the Palestinian government is still under the Israeli siege. Border are still closed and the processes of importing building material is supervised by Israel. There are 42,000 houses that need to be rebuilt but we only have enough cement for 900 homes. Israel allows one thing to enter but bans the rest. All this delays the reconstruction processes.”

Israel’s recent war on Gaza ended on August 26 with an Egyptian-brokered truce, which took effect after negotiations in the Egyptian capital, Cairo.

Israel started pounding the blockaded enclave in early July, inflicting heavy losses on the Palestinian land. Almost 2,140 Palestinians, mostly civilians, including women, children, and the elderly, were killed in the 50 days of the Israeli onslaught on Gaza. Around 11,000 others were injured.

The Gaza Strip has been under Israel’s blockade since June 2007. The blockade has caused a decline in the standard of living as well as unprecedented levels of unemployment, and unrelenting poverty.