Abdelrahman Abu Anza’s family home in war-ravaged Gaza’s south has been reduced to rubble, which the Palestinian man is now using to build a shelter to protect from the winter cold.
Israeli bombardment in more than 14 months of war has left “more than 70 percent of civilian housing… either damaged or destroyed“, according to the United Nations’ humanitarian agency OCHA.
With many residents of the Gaza Strip displaced by the war, often seeking shelter in tent camps, the approaching winter is a major cause for concern.
Some, like Abu Anza, have resorted to building makeshift homes using broken concrete from war-damaged buildings and antiquated techniques to make mortar.
Surrounded by debris in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza’s main city, Abu Anza told AFP that “our home was very old, it was built in 1936.”
Making mortar by mixing clay sand with water, Abu Anza said he was “able to collect these stones to rebuild a wall to protect us, and then we will rebuild the whole house”.
Others are also scrambling to prepare shelters with limited resources, anticipating the cold winter nights in the besieged territory, where temperatures can drop to around 6 degrees Celsius (42 Fahrenheit).
Last year, a few months into the war, heavy rains flooded the tents of hundreds of thousands of people displaced by fighting, leaving them even more vulnerable to the effects of the coastal territory’s humid nights.
Although temperatures never fall below zero degrees Celsius, nighttime humidity seeps into clothes, creating a damp feeling that is hard to get rid of in such precarious living conditions.
‘Warmer than a tent’Â
Even before the war, an Israeli blockade meant that very little building material had entered Gaza.
Israeli authorities drastically restricted cement imports and now it is virtually banned, despite pleas from several aid groups since the summer to include construction material in the list of products allowed into Gaza.
“There is no cement, so the alternative is that we go back to how it was 70 years ago, to the time of our ancestors, building with clay,” said Muhammad Shanino, whose three-storey home had been destroyed.
“They have taken us back to a primitive life,” he said, pointing to a wall of mismatched building blocks, roughly mortared.
The Global Shelter Cluster coalition of aid groups said that “when possible, repairing existing houses is the most effective approach” to prepare for winter.
Shanino said he had used some 700 stones from his ruined home to construct a humble shelter, where his family now share a single room.
With a corrugated metal sheet and tarps for a roof, a window covered only by a thin piece of fabric and walls riddled with cracks, their abode is still exposed to the elements.
And although it is much smaller than the house they used to live in, “my children say it’s warmer than a tent”, Shanino added.
‘We want to live’Â
Users on social media have shared videos of makeshift homes, praising Gazans’ ingenuity and resilience as they endure dire humanitarian conditions.
Beyond the widespread destruction, Israel’s brutal war has killed at least 43,922 people in Gaza, most of them civilians.
Last October, the US gave a deadline to Israel to increase aid flow or face a cut to military aid. However, aid agencies have accused Israel of failing to meet the demands, even as the US said that Israel was not in violation of relevant US laws
Mohammad Alkhatib, Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) Deputy Director of Programmes in Gaza, told The New Arab that the aid shortfalls were creating a cycle of hardship for Gaza’s displaced.
“Unfortunately, the winter will worsen this cycle and make it uglier and more intractable,” he said, adding: “This is because winter comes with its own specific requirements and added burdens. Imagine the winter winds, the rain and the cold weather.”
Alkhatib highlighted that as well as improper shelter, a lack of clothing, blankets and safe heating, the risks of disease will be accentuated.Â
“Winter conditions in such situations bring with it the increased risk of specific diseases such as upper respiratory tract infections, plus the wholesale destruction of critical infrastructure massively increases the risk of flooding and further contamination of the fragile sewage system,” he said.
Nevertheless, Palestinian woman Nidaa al-Jarn said she was grateful to have a shelter.
Standing barefoot in a makeshift room “made of stones that we took from demolished houses and reclaimed, and built with mud”, Jarn said she had constructed it “because we want to live.”
