Saturday, January 31, 2009

12 days after the war

After 12 days of the agreed cease-fire between Palestinian brigades and Israel in Gaza, situation is still unstable. On humanitarian level, situation is a disaster. Thousands of people who lost their houses still have no place to go. Size of destruction discovered is beyond the imagination of anyone. All relief actions that have been taken are still on the primary stage and offer those poor vulnerable people only basic aids. The reconstruction operations are still pending due to the closure of all crossing points. Only few goods are allowed to enter Gaza, leaving the Gaza strip in a miserable shape; taking into account the huge impacts of the war and the continuous siege which was and still very stricky since 20 months in arrow. Despite all that, wounds and sadness stories of the war victims have become the fever of the media and press. Gaza has become the target of many Arabs and Muslims who came to support and relief the people in here. People and charity associations from Turkey, Egypt, Kuwait, Jordan, Algeria, and others arrived and took hundreds of tours around to see the destroyed areas as well as governmental structures.
Many international NGOs, such as UNRWA and UNDP have already started assessing the damage rapidly to measure the size and type of damage occurred and try to figure out something that may help. Talking about the huge destruction that touches almost everything in Gaza, numbers can talk specifically more than words:
4000 houses had been totally demolished.
17,000 houses had been partially damaged.
95 mosques have been damaged (45 of them are totally destroyed)
one hospital for the red crescent had been totally burned and some hospitals and health centers had been partially damaged.
all ministries and presidential buildings have been totally destroyed (including police stations and gov. ministries compound).
3 municipalities have been partially damaged.
Islamic university have a core damage in one of its main buildings, which is scientific labratories building, as well as other buildings. The estimated cost of repair is nearly 15 million US$.
the list is too long and can never end. However, end of suffering for the people in Gaza have not showed up yet.

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