Among ruins of bombed city towers, Gazans still reel from shock and pain

Three months after 11-Day Gaza War workers are still digging through what remains for twisted strips of steel rebar, straightening it with pliers to be resold for new construction projects.

The scene is repeated all over the coastal enclave. Hardly anything destroyed in May has been rebuilt yet, save filling in some of the craters on the main roads for traffic, because the majority of outside funding for reconstruction is still held up in talks. The ceasefire, now presided over by a new Israeli coalition government headed by right-winger Naftali Bennett, is fragile – but holding.
 

Hamas and other groups such as Islamic Jihad declared they won May’s hostilities, and indeed, they managed to scare Israel with both the volume and range of their rocket attacks – not to mention an improved ability to get missiles past the Iron Dome air defence system.
 

But it doesn’t feel like that on the ground. The still-gaping wounds of Gaza City’s architecture reflect the shock and pain many here are still suffering.

May was the third large-scale round of fighting between Israel and Hamas in the 14 years since the militants wrested control of the strip from the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority. The takeover led Israel and neighbouring Egypt to impose a punishing blockade which has created what inhabitants call the “world’s largest prison”, with more than 50% unemployment, a collapsed healthcare system, poisonous water and relentless power cuts.

Each war has brought fresh sorrows, although the nature of the fighting has differed. With no ground invasion this time, Israel instead relied on the heaviest weapons in its arsenal, including US-made “bunker busting” GBU-28s, for an intense aerial campaign. And the clearest difference between this war and those that have come before, according to local human rights group al-Mezan, is the deliberate targeting of high-rise tower blocks, all of which were home to civilians and offices.
 

With limited space and a growing population, there are few options for Gazans other than to build upwards. Yet after gathering its fieldwork over the last three months, al-Mezan has found that this time around, 232 housing units in high-rises like al-Jalaa were hit during May’s 11-day confrontation, compared with 182 in 2014’s conflict, which lasted seven weeks. In May, bombings of towers were usually accompanied by a phone call warning residents to evacuate. In 2014 such calls were rare.

As at the end of the 2014 war, the centre of Gaza City, rather than border areas, was heavily targeted. Even now the commercial crossing with Israel remains partially closed, creating shortages in medical supplies such as anaesthetic gas, putting surgeries on hold and limiting the strip’s intensive-care capabilities.

“This time there was a clear targeting of humanitarian efforts. Even things like hitting residential streets because they say there are Hamas tunnels beneath: it bursts water pipes, it blocks roads, making it harder to evacuate the wounded,” said Samir Zaquot, field research unit director at al-Mezan.

“They didn’t hit some obvious Hamas targets, like Yahya Sinwar’s office [Hamas’ leader inside Gaza]. It’s about sending a message. It’s about telling Hamas, ‘Look, we can destroy everything,’ and telling ordinary people there is no hope.”

Ultimately it is the mental toll of life in Gaza, rather than physical destruction, which carries the highest cost, said 38-year-old Sharif. “To live without freedom and without dignity makes it impossible to be happy,” he said, sitting with the rest of his family in the shade outside their ruined home. Where the back wall should be, a silvery olive grove is now visible, its leaves whispering as the summer breeze passes through the shell of the house.

“That is what it means to be Palestinian. Raed dreamed of being free, but it was impossible.” For so many, it is still.

Source: The Guardian