GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Every time Israel wages war on Gaza, it targets mosques under the justification that the Palestinian resistance uses their basements to store weapons. The Ministry of Religious Endowments in the Gaza Strip is raising funds for the reconstruction of destroyed mosques, which will cost millions of dollars.

Many Gazans denounce the collection of these enormous sums to rebuild grandiose mosques in a city whose residents are burdened by poverty, unemployment and destruction. The population in Gaza is almost 2 million, 40% of which live below the poverty line and 43% suffer from unemployment, according to the Euro-Med Monitor.

Anwar Abu Shawish, the head of the Directorate of Follow-up at the Ministry of Religious Endowments, told Al-Monitor, “According to the Ministry of Religious Endowments’ statistics, there are 1,078 mosques in the Gaza Strip, 921 of which are supervised by the ministry, while 157 mosques are affiliated with political organizations or Dar al-Sunnah. These organizations merely obtain permits to build their mosques from the municipality without reference to the Ministry of Religious Endowments, and thus the latter has no power over them. The ministry has not finished rebuilding destroyed mosques due to the blockade, the lack of funds and the political differences. Fifty-four mosques are still completely destroyed, in addition to hundreds of partially destroyed mosques whose reconstruction is yet to start.”

He explained that the ministry collects donations from other countries and concerned institutions for rebuilding destroyed mosques and supervises the reconstruction process through committees composed of residents from the neighborhoods in which the mosques are located, an engineer, an inspector and an accountant from the ministry.