Over the past six years, Gaza has seen three devastating conflicts that have destroyed infrastructure, schools, streets and homes. Insufficient funding, coupled with the ongoing blockade, has drastically hindered reconstruction efforts in the aftermath of the most recent conflict in the summer of 2014. Of the US$ 720 million required for the Agency’s emergency shelter programme in Gaza, only US$ 247 million has been pledged to date, leaving a shortfall of US$ 473 million. Today, more than 13,000 refugee families whose homes were destroyed or severely damaged in last year’s conflict remain displaced, with the winter season – which in Gaza is accompanied by storms, severe rainfall and floods – fast approaching. Without the necessary financial support for reconstruction and humanitarian efforts in Gaza and robust political action to lift the blockade, the Gaza Strip risks becoming uninhabitable in a matter of years.
