SHAJAIYA, Gaza City — More than one and a half years have passed since the 51-day war on Gaza, which started on July 8, 2014. Since then, about 18,000 homes were destroyed partially or completely and have yet to be rebuilt because of the suspension of the reconstruction process in the Gaza Strip.

Saeed al-Haddad is one of the people who has yet to receive compensation for his destroyed property. The four-story building is dilapidated, uninhabitable and doomed to collapse. However, Haddad wishes to turn it into a zoo, as he has been fond of raising animals since childhood.

According to Haddad, the F-16 fighting jets dropped two missiles on his house on July 14, 2014, in the Shajaiya neighborhood east of the city of Gaza. The neighborhood was almost totally destroyed by the tanks, bombs and military aircraft shells.

“We received a phone call around 11 in the morning warning us to evacuate the house immediately as it was about to be bombed. At first we did not believe it; we thought it was an attempt to scare us. However, when we received the second call, I ran out of the house with my children and by the time we got to the corner of the street, we heard the blast,” Haddad told Al-Monitor.