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Gazans build temporary houses while awaiting reconstruction

In the absence of funds and construction materials, which delayed the reconstruction process in the Gaza Strip, Palestinians are resorting to relief associations that provide them with temporary wooden houses.
Palestinians, whose house was destroyed by what witnesses said was Israeli shelling during a 50-day war last summer, sit outside their wooden shelter donated by Catholic Relief Services, east of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip February 16, 2015. Aid agencies struggling to shelter thousands of Gazans made homeless by war have resorted to building makeshift temporary homes out of metal and wood to evade Israeli restrictions on imports into the territory. Around 150,000 families are still homeless after
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KHAN YUNIS, Gaza Strip — Palestinians whose homes were destroyed during the last war on the Gaza Strip in July-August 2014, did not expect their suffering to last more than six months. Yet, they still do not know when they will be compensated and when their homes will be rebuilt, amid growing doubts that their suffering will last longer in light of the current political situation.

Ahmad Barakeh’s two-story house, with four apartments housing 11 family members, was destroyed. He hesitated when he was offered a temporary wooden house next to his destroyed concrete house, because he feared that this temporary house would end up being his permanent one.

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