In photos: Family watches Israeli forces take down home
- 13 jan 2011
In photos: Family watches Israeli forces take down home
Click on the image to enlarge it
MaanImages/Khaleel Reash
Members of the Younis family watch while their home is demolished by the Israeli bulldozers in the West Bank village of Azzun Atma near Qalqiliya, January 11, 2011.
Owner Mu'in Amin Younis, told Ma'an that he began building the home in 2003, on lands owned by his family. He had not yet completed the 130 meter structure when it was demolished.
"They said I built it without a license, but it is my own land," he said.
The village where the Younis family lives is stranded between the Green Line, Israel's separation barrier and two settlements. It is only partially under Palestinian control. Areas of the village near the barrier and settlements come under Israeli civil and military jurisdiction, known as Area C.
Because Younis owns land in Area C, he must apply to Israel for a permit to construct a home. Rights organizations and UN bodies have recognized that it is almost impossible to obtain such a permit.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=350567
IOF serves demolition notifications, settlers seize Palestinian land
NABLUS, (PIC)-- Israeli occupation forces (IOF) served demolition notices to a number of citizens in Jaftalk village in the northern Jordan Valley on Wednesday and told them to leave the area.
Eyewitnesses said that the destruction threat covered six installations including homes and cattle pens, adding that the act fell in line with plans to confiscate the village's land.
Jaftalk villagers live a primitive life as they are deprived of water and electricity services by the Israeli occupation authority, which also prevents them from building forcing the citizens to live in houses made of tin and plastic.
In Nablus district, IOF troops stormed a school south of the city, the school's headmaster reported, adding that a number of settlers were accompanying the IOF.
He said that an IOF armored vehicle rammed into the school's main gate. The soldiers then climbed to its rooftop to protect settlers who were visiting a nearby shrine.
Meanwhile, tens of settlers from the Shilo settlement south of Nablus seized by force 25 dunums of Qaryut village land and blocked villagers from approaching it.
Witnesses said that the settlers ploughed and planted the land under the protection of IOF soldiers on Wednesday.
http://bit.ly/fJ27U4
29 may 2011, 10:15 , Respect -
Maria 14 jan 2011
Israel demolishes homes and classroom in West Bank village
In a bleak but beautiful landscape of undulating stony hills I watched a group of Palestinian schoolchildren take their lessons yesterday in the open air next to a heap of rubble that, until this week, was their classroom.
This is the village of Dkaika, about as far south in the West Bank as you can get. It's a community of around 300 people, without electricity or running water, whose days are spent tending their herds of goats and sheep and trying not to attract the attention of nearby Jewish settlers.
On Wednesday, at about 7.30am, a convoy of military vehicles and bulldozers arrived to tear down 16 homes, an animal pen, a store and one of the village school's classrooms. All were subject to demolition orders, granted because the structures were built without permission, which is almost impossible for Palestinians to get around here. Dkaika is in Area C, under full Israeli military and civil control, which accounts for 60% of the West Bank.
At the time there were dozens of children inside the school. The soldiers tried to prevent the its three teachers from entering the building. Sulaima Najadah, 38, who has taught English at the school since last September, told me that he sneaked in to reassure the crying children.
"I was in this class," he said, pointing to the pile of twisted metal and masonry. "The soldiers took us out by force."
The teachers were handcuffed and blindfolded in front of their pupils before the bulldozers moved in. One girl, Mariam Odeh, 13, said she had been afraid the classroom would be demolished over their heads.
Twelve-year-old Nayfeh Ka'abneh lost her home as well as her classroom. That night she slept in a tent. "It wasn't comfortable," she said, shyly twisting the ends of her headscarf. "We want to rebuild our home."
http://bit.ly/i6GnrL
Israel demolishes homes and classroom in West Bank village
Nayfeh Ka'abneh and a friend.
Children taught outdoors after bulldozers reduce unauthorised buildings to rubble.
In a bleak but beautiful landscape of undulating stony hills I watched a group of Palestinian schoolchildren take their lessons yesterday in the open air next to a heap of rubble that, until this week, was their classroom.
This is the village of Dkaika, about as far south in the West Bank as you can get. It's a community of around 300 people, without electricity or running water, whose days are spent tending their herds of goats and sheep and trying not to attract the attention of nearby Jewish settlers.
On Wednesday, at about 7.30am, a convoy of military vehicles and bulldozers arrived to tear down 16 homes, an animal pen, a store and one of the village school's classrooms. All were subject to demolition orders, granted because the structures were built without permission, which is almost impossible for Palestinians to get around here. Dkaika is in Area C, under full Israeli military and civil control, which accounts for 60% of the West Bank.
At the time there were dozens of children inside the school. The soldiers tried to prevent the its three teachers from entering the building. Sulaima Najadah, 38, who has taught English at the school since last September, told me that he sneaked in to reassure the crying children.
"I was in this class," he said, pointing to the pile of twisted metal and masonry. "The soldiers took us out by force."
The teachers were handcuffed and blindfolded in front of their pupils before the bulldozers moved in. One girl, Mariam Odeh, 13, said she had been afraid the classroom would be demolished over their heads.
Twelve-year-old Nayfeh Ka'abneh lost her home as well as her classroom. That night she slept in a tent. "It wasn't comfortable," she said, shyly twisting the ends of her headscarf. "We want to rebuild our home."
In another tent, with a rug laid over bare stony ground and a small fire burning in a corner, Fida Najada, 24, said she had no money to reconstruct her home. Her husband, who was tending herds far from the village, did not yet know it had been demolished. Pregnant and with a small boy clinging to her legs, Najada had no idea how long she would have to live under canvas.
Between 50 and 60 people were made homeless by Wednesday's demolitions, adding to the 478 - many of them children - displaced in Area C in 2010, according to figures from the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). The number for the previous year was 319. http://bit.ly/gQWLaq
Residents had believed the demolition orders were on hold while a plan to regularise the village was considered by the Israeli authorities.
They did not deny that buildings were erected without permission. Palestinian building is rarely approved in Area C, in contrast to permits for settlement expansion.
The area has been inhabited by Palestinians since the Ottoman era, locals said. Its population swelled when families moved across the Green Line from the Negev after the war in 1948.
A spokesman for the Israeli military told me yesterday afternoon he would make inquiries about the demolitions. I will post any comment from the IDF on the thread below when it comes through.
http://bit.ly/hcoSKD
31 may 2011, 09:51 , Respect -
Maria 15 jan 2011
Israel to demolish 7 homes near Tulkarm
RAMALLAH: Israeli authorities on Saturday handed notification to seven Palestinian families near the West Bank city of Tulkarm warning that their homes will be demolished. They claimed that the houses in Area C were built without permits.
Ziad Al-Salem, head of Nazlat Issa village's council, said the Israeli Civil Administration officers under the protection of Israeli forces handed the demolition orders to the families in the village, located north of Tulkarm.
Al-Salem added that the homes the southern part of the village were inhabited for several years.
He said the houses belonged to Abdulrahim Yousef Shawarib, Abdulkarim Yousef Shawarib, Mohammed Ahmed Alloush, Mahmoud Izzat Hussein, Abdulhalim Zaki Shihadeh and Iyad Abdullatif As'ad.
The official called on the Palestinian Authority and international community to pressure Israel to stop illegal measures in the Jordan Valley which "aims at displacing the Palestinians from their homes and to expand the Jewish settlements in the area."
According to the Oslo agreement, Area A is under Palestinian administrative and security control, Area B under Palestinian administrative control but under Israeli security, and Area C is under full Israeli control. However, Israel reoccupied the three areas in the aftermath of its large-scale military operation in 2002.
http://arabnews.com/middleeast/article235782.ece
BULLDOZED NEGOTIATIONS
Israeli bulldozers demolished the Shepherd Hotel in an Arab East Jerusalem neighbourhood Sunday to make way for a new Israeli enclave
According to reliable Israeli sources in Jerusalem, the Israeli municipal authorities are awaiting an opportune time to carry out further large-scale demolitions of Arab homes in the Silwan neighbourhood. "If the government finds out that international reactions, especially US reactions, are weak as usual, then it will mean a kind of go-ahead signal for the demolitions," said the source that was not authorised to speak to the media.
Israeli bulldozers do the talking
Despite prior condemnations, Israel is pressing ahead with demolitions as it continues to colonise East Jerusalem and the West Bank, writes Khalid Amayreh.
Israel this week demonstrated once again its determination to scuttle any genuine peacemaking effort that might lead to the establishment of a viable Palestinian state based on 1967 borders.
Israeli bulldozers and huge hydraulic jackhammers descended on the Palestinian neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah to demolish the Shepherd Hotel, a huge complex dating back to the 1930s. Part of the structure served as home to the former grand mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin Al-Husseini. The doomed structure thus had a lot of historical significance related to the history of the Palestinian struggle.
The demolition was the latest step by Israel to consolidate Jewish hegemony over the occupied Arab town and obliterate its erstwhile Arab- Islamic identity. The forced Judaisation of the city -- holy to Muslims, Christians and Jews -- is done feverishly through shadowy deals and dubious expropriation practices in which deception, cheating and trickery loom large.
Moreover, Zionist circles in cooperation with the Israeli government and Jewish settler interests have allocated hundreds of million of dollars for the purpose of channelling Arab-owned property to Jewish interests all over East Jerusalem. The demolition of the Shepherd Hotel took place despite international -- including American -- objections.
However, given the generally ineffectual nature of these objections, the Israeli government has grown accustomed to taking them lightly, calculating that they are only meant for public relations consumption and that in no way do they constitute a credible challenge to Israel's settlement policy.
According to reliable Israeli sources in Jerusalem, the Israeli municipal authorities are awaiting an opportune time to carry out further large-scale demolitions of Arab homes in the Silwan neighbourhood. "If the government finds out that international reactions, especially US reactions, are weak as usual, then it will mean a kind of go-ahead signal for the demolitions," said the source that was not authorised to speak to the media.
"They [the pro-settler Municipal Council of the city] want to desensitise international public opinion to accept [their] reality and come to terms with the fact that Israel will have its way in Jerusalem."
Reactions to the latest provocation in East Jerusalem have been "normal", whether from the Palestinian Authority (PA) -- which as usual appealed to "the international community" to pressure Israel -- or from EU, UN and Arab states, which more or less repeated the same old platitudes pertaining to Israel's settlement policy being unlawful and counterproductive to peace.
Saeb Ereikat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, urged the West to act on its condemnation of Israeli provocations. "The UN and governments around the world, including the US and the UK, have already condemned plans to demolish this particular hotel. We call on the world to take a strong stand in defence of their positions. This intransigent and illegal behaviour on behalf of Israel must not be allowed to proceed unchecked."
Speaking in desperate tone, Ereikat said Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was undercutting and corroding international efforts to create a Palestinian state. "While Netanyahu continues his public relations campaign regarding the peace process, on the ground he is rapidly moving to prevent the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state.
"Israel continues to change the landscape of Jerusalem aiming to change its status and turn it into an exclusive Jewish city. This process of cleansing and colonisation must be stopped to change the dark reality of Israeli occupation into a free and sovereign Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital."
Meanwhile, the Israeli government has been trying to give the impression that diplomatic movement was underway, probably to create a public relations counterbalance to settlement expansion and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Netanyahu met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo this week. He also asked for a meeting with King Abdullah of Jordan, ostensibly for the same reason.
Mubarak did urge Netanyahu to reverse present Israeli policies vis-à-vis the Palestinians and the peace process. Netanyahu heard Mubarak's appeal but didn't listen to it. For as soon as he returned to Israel, the demolitions in East Jerusalem took place.
Meanwhile, Israel is about to dispatch an envoy to Washington to assure the Obama administration that the Netanyahu government is still committed to the peace process. This comes in the aftermath of the clarion failure of the Obama administration to convince Israel to freeze settlement expansion in the occupied Palestinian territories, even in exchange for huge diplomatic inducements and military incentives.
Some analysts believe that the obsequious American behaviour towards the Netanyahu government, especially the excessive patience displayed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, has further emboldened Israel and encouraged the Israeli leadership to ignore US pressure. "I am sure that Mrs Clinton dreads Israeli wrath and displeasure more than the Israelis dread American wrath and displeasure," said one veteran European journalist based in East Jerusalem.
The US reaction to the demolition of the Shepherd Hotel as well as the latest coldblooded killing of innocent Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including farmers tilling their land and old men sleeping in their beds, has been characteristically hollow and wrapped in diplomatic jargon.
Meanwhile, Clinton put the peace process on the backburner as she toured Gulf Arab emirates and sheikhdoms, inciting them against Iran's nuclear programme. Predictably, Clinton implied that Israel posed no threat to the Arabs and that the real common enemy of both Israel and the Arabs is Iran. Clinton went as far as discrediting statements by former Mossad chief Meir Dagan in which he said that Iran wouldn't have nuclear weapons capability before 2015.
A few weeks ago, Clinton dismissed the charge that "unilateral Israel actions" were derailing the peace process. "Bilateral negotiations," she said, "are the only way to reach peace between Israel and the Palestinians." One PA cabinet minister commented on Clinton's remarks, saying: "This is very much like telling a rapist and his victim to sort it out among themselves."
http://bit.ly/dYZkzl
Villagers near wall told to stop building homes
TULKAREM (Ma'an) -- Israeli forces on Friday delivered "stop work" orders to seven Palestinian families building homes in the West Bank district of Tulkarem.
The orders said the buildings did not have the required permits.
The village, Nazlat Isa, is a small population center north of Tulkarem. The route of Israel's separation wall runs along the western edge of its residential area, and severed access to much of the village land.
The whole village was declared to be Area B under the Oslo Accords in the 1990s, giving Israel full military control over its lands and residents.
The families said Israeli forces escorted inspectors from an Israeli construction department, who delivered the orders.
Those told to halt work were identified as Abdul-Rahim Shawarib, Abdul-Hakim Shawarib, Muhammad Alloush, Fadil Alloush, Mahmoud Hussein, Abdul-Halim Shehadah, and Iyad As'ad.
The families will be given a short period of time to appeal the orders in an Israeli court, an expensive process. If no court action is taken or the case is lost, demolition orders will be issued.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that during 2010, Israeli forces demolished an average of eight structures per week. Over the last seven days, 19 structures, including part of a school, were demolished.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=351170
Friday protest moves to Shepherd Hotel
(3:54) Demo in Sheikh Jarrah: Friday 14-1-11
The weekly protest in Sheikh Jarrah took place in front of the Shepherd Hotel yesterday, where demolitionshttp://bit.ly/eckVeF began last Sunday to make way for the construction of a Jewish residential complex owned by Irving Moskowitz.
The demolition was met with sharp criticism by the US http://bit.ly/ijbbsW and European http://bit.ly/fpXLQV community, however the Prime Minister Office's response http://bit.ly/epyRAZ is that this is a private matter that they need not get involved in, insisting that Palestinians have the same rights to renting and buying property as Jews do in the city. However, anyone familiar with the situation in Jerusalem knows this is not true, and the recent story of Nof Zion reported http://bit.ly/flSBTW on by 972's Ami Kaufman is just one blatant example of the inequality between Palestinians and Jews regarding Jerusalem real estate.
According to protestors, the police was especially aggressive and violent yesterday, however no arrests were made.
http://972mag.com/friday-protest-moves-to-shepherd-hotel/
Israeli bulldozers do the talking
Israeli bulldozers demolished the Shepherd Hotel in an Arab East Jerusalem neighbourhood Sunday to make way for a new Israeli enclave
According to reliable Israeli sources in Jerusalem, the Israeli municipal authorities are awaiting an opportune time to carry out further large-scale demolitions of Arab homes in the Silwan neighbourhood. If the government finds out that international reactions, especially US reactions, are weak as usual, then it will mean a kind of go-ahead signal for the demolitions, said the source that was not authorised to speak to the media.
Despite prior condemnations, Israel is pressing ahead with demolitions as it continues to colonise East Jerusalem and the West Bank, writes Khalid Amayreh.
Israel this week demonstrated once again its determination to scuttle any genuine peacemaking effort that might lead to the establishment of a viable Palestinian state based on 1967 borders.
Israeli bulldozers and huge hydraulic jackhammers descended on the Palestinian neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah to demolish the Shepherd Hotel, a huge complex dating back to the 1930s. Part of the structure served as home to the former grand mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin Al-Husseini. The doomed structure thus had a lot of historical significance related to the history of the Palestinian struggle.
The demolition was the latest step by Israel to consolidate Jewish hegemony over the occupied Arab town and obliterate its erstwhile Arab- Islamic identity. The forced Judaisation of the city holy to Muslims, Christians and Jews is done feverishly through shadowy deals and dubious expropriation practices in which deception, cheating and trickery loom large.
Moreover, Zionist circles in cooperation with the Israeli government and Jewish settler interests have allocated hundreds of million of dollars for the purpose of channelling Arab-owned property to Jewish interests all over East Jerusalem. The demolition of the Shepherd Hotel took place despite international including American objections.
However, given the generally ineffectual nature of these objections, the Israeli government has grown accustomed to taking them lightly, calculating that they are only meant for public relations consumption and that in no way do they constitute a credible challenge to Israel's settlement policy.
According to reliable Israeli sources in Jerusalem, the Israeli municipal authorities are awaiting an opportune time to carry out further large-scale demolitions of Arab homes in the Silwan neighbourhood. If the government finds out that international reactions, especially US reactions, are weak as usual, then it will mean a kind of go-ahead signal for the demolitions, said the source that was not authorised to speak to the media.
They [the pro-settler Municipal Council of the city] want to desensitise international public opinion to accept [their] reality and come to terms with the fact that Israel will have its way in Jerusalem.
Reactions to the latest provocation in East Jerusalem have been normal, whether from the Palestinian Authority (PA) which as usual appealed to the international community to pressure Israel or from EU, UN and Arab states, which more or less repeated the same old platitudes pertaining to Israel's settlement policy being unlawful and counterproductive to peace.
Saeb Ereikat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, urged the West to act on its condemnation of Israeli provocations. The UN and governments around the world, including the US and the UK, have already condemned plans to demolish this particular hotel. We call on the world to take a strong stand in defence of their positions. This intransigent and illegal behaviour on behalf of Israel must not be allowed to proceed unchecked.
Speaking in desperate tone, Ereikat said Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was undercutting and corroding international efforts to create a Palestinian state. While Netanyahu continues his public relations campaign regarding the peace process, on the ground he is rapidly moving to prevent the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state.
Israel continues to change the landscape of Jerusalem aiming to change its status and turn it into an exclusive Jewish city. This process of cleansing and colonisation must be stopped to change the dark reality of Israeli occupation into a free and sovereign Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Meanwhile, the Israeli government has been trying to give the impression that diplomatic movement was underway, probably to create a public relations counterbalance to settlement expansion and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Netanyahu met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo this week. He also asked for a meeting with King Abdullah of Jordan, ostensibly for the same reason. Mubarak did urge Netanyahu to reverse present Israeli policies vis-à-vis the Palestinians and the peace process. Netanyahu heard Mubarak's appeal but didn't listen to it. For as soon as he returned to Israel, the demolitions in East Jerusalem took place.
Meanwhile, Israel is about to dispatch an envoy to Washington to assure the Obama administration that the Netanyahu government is still committed to the peace process. This comes in the aftermath of the clarion failure of the Obama administration to convince Israel to freeze settlement expansion in the occupied Palestinian territories, even in exchange for huge diplomatic inducements and military incentives.
Some analysts believe that the obsequious American behaviour towards the Netanyahu government, especially the excessive patience displayed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, has further emboldened Israel and encouraged the Israeli leadership to ignore US pressure. I am sure that Mrs Clinton dreads Israeli wrath and displeasure more than the Israelis dread American wrath and displeasure, said one veteran European journalist based in East Jerusalem.
The US reaction to the demolition of the Shepherd Hotel as well as the latest coldblooded killing of innocent Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including farmers tilling their land and old men sleeping in their beds, has been characteristically hollow and wrapped in diplomatic jargon.
Meanwhile, Clinton put the peace process on the backburner as she toured Gulf Arab emirates and sheikhdoms, inciting them against Iran's nuclear programme. Predictably, Clinton implied that Israel posed no threat to the Arabs and that the real common enemy of both Israel and the Arabs is Iran. Clinton went as far as discrediting statements by former Mossad chief Meir Dagan in which he said that Iran wouldn't have nuclear weapons capability before 2015.
A few weeks ago, Clinton dismissed the charge that unilateral Israel actions were derailing the peace process. Bilateral negotiations, she said, are the only way to reach peace between Israel and the Palestinians. One PA cabinet minister commented on Clinton's remarks, saying: This is very much like telling a rapist and his victim to sort it out among themselves.
http://bit.ly/dGClop
UN rapporteur slams Israeli atrocity
United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, Richard Falk
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, Richard Falk, says recent events clearly demonstrate Israel's tendency to use excessive force against Palestinians.
In a statement on Friday, Falk protested the killing of four Palestinians by Israeli troops this month in the occupied West Bank.
The UN human rights expert also slammed Israel's demolition of the historic Shepherd Hotel in East al-Quds (Jerusalem) on Jan. 9, 2011.
The building, which was a Palestinian landmark, was razed to the ground in order to make way for new Israeli settlements.
The Palestinians reacted furiously to the hotel demolition, which sits on a plot of land in the annexed East al-Quds, where developers plan to build a complex of 20 luxury apartments for illegal settlers.
The act has destroyed any chance of return to negotiations, Nabil Abu Rudeina, a spokesman for acting Palestinian Authority (PA) Chief Mahmoud Abbas, said in a statement the day after the demolition took place.
In the light of these events, Falk called on the international community to intervene and protect the vulnerable Palestinian population against Israeli violence.
Together these events demonstrate a general and unacceptable Israeli disposition to use excessive force against Palestinians, Reuters quoted Falk as saying.
"This is part of an accelerating pattern in East al-Quds that consists of shifting the demographic balance to reinforce Israeli claims to control permanently the entire city, making the creation of a viable Palestinian state, with its capital as East al-Quds, virtually unattainable," he added.
It is time for the international community to step in and offer this long vulnerable Palestinian population protection against the violence perpetrated by Israeli authorities, he concluded.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/160206.html
Surviving off one's flattened house in Gaza
Abu Ali Kader sifts through the rubble of his house that was destroyed in Israeli invasion to find materials to sell.
Gaza: Hauling a shovel and a hammer Abu Ali Kader makes his daily trip not to work but the rubble of the house he once owned to complete its demolition.
"For over 20 tough years, I've saved up every single penny working as a construction worker within the Israeli region with the intention of building this house. Yet all the money, time and effort spent on this house vanished in less than a minute," Abu Ali in agony said.
The hands which built the house are now digging through the remains to find anything worthwhile to sell.
"It took me over 20 years to build this house block by block with my own two hands; it all holds so many memories.
"I lost my way back to my own home after the withdrawal of the Israeli armies as soon as the war was over and staggered at the devastating sight of the whole neighbourhood being turned upside down. In fact, I felt as if I had lost one of my own children at the sight of my own home left in smithereens." he said.
Unemployed father
Kader stands in front of what remains of his house.
Kader, a father of 12, has been unemployed since 2000 and living on aid. He currently lives in a 100 square metre room that he built on his own on a small piece of land belonging to his nephew in northern Gaza strip in Ezbet Abd Rabo, not far from the Israeli border.
Ezbet Abd Rabo is one the villages that bore the brunt of the 23-day 2008-2009 invasion of Gaza.
According to official medical reports, the biggest number of deaths in the war on Gaza were of residents in that area and the destruction is visible even two years after the war. Piles of rubble strewn around the area, people living in tents, and structures still standing riddled with bullet holes.
"We heard a lot about the renovation of houses destroyed but nothing changed with me so I decided to sell the remainder of my house in an attempt to build a smaller one that can shelter my family".
The attack on Gaza strip destroyed a lot of houses and altered some people's lives beyond recognition.
According to the ministry of public works and housing, over 14,000 homes had been damaged during the war on Gaza strip, 3,500 totally destroyed and 1,500 left unsuitable to live in.
The estimated cost of rebuilding and repairing the damage of civilian houses in Gaza strip is around half $1 billion (Dh3.67 billion).
From the left over pebbles to the steel from his destroyed house Kader desperately tries to sell anything for which he can find a buyer. In fact, with the Israeli ban on construction materials, it is easy to find a buyer.
"Just like these days two years ago our house was demolished and although we tried to rent out a house for a while, we just couldn't afford it; it cost so much and we don't have enough money to" he added.
Rents range between $200 and $300 a month which exceeds an ordinary employee's salary in Gaza strip.
"I'm doing well in this small house and even if the Israeli army ... destroyed my new house once again, I would simply build another one, this is my land and I'm not going anywhere!"
http://bit.ly/ePI0dg