First 10 Days Of Month Sees Homes Of 1,100 Palestinians In Gaza Destroyed – UN Agency
In what it is calling one of the most intense periods of destruction since the start of the intifada, the main United
Nations agency helping Palestinian refugees said today the Israeli military has demolished or damaged beyond repair 131
residential buildings in the Gaza Strip since the start of May, leaving 1,100 people homeless.
According to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), the latest destruction brings to 17,594 the
total number of people who have lost their homes in Gaza. The majority of the demolitions have taken place in Rafah in
the south, where 11,215 people have already been made homeless by demolitions since the current strife began in
September 2000, and in the region of the Kissufim Road, where a Palestinian attack on 2 May left an Israeli mother and
her four children dead.
UNRWA Commissioner-General Peter Hansen said the Agency condemned “without reservation the 2 May killings, as it does
the killing of innocent Palestinians and their children, as international law simply forbids collective punishment.”
“The overwhelming majority of the more than 17,000 Palestinians who have lost their homes in Gaza since the start of the
intifada have been guilty of nothing more than living in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he said.
UNRWA, the largest humanitarian operation in the occupied Palestinian territory, has been providing those who have lost
their homes with water, food, blankets and cash assistance. With funding from donors the Agency has been able to build
new shelters in safe places for several hundred of the homeless families, but its resources are unable to meet the
growing humanitarian crisis faced by those without shelter.