GAZA, (PIC)
Amid stalled reconstruction efforts and the continuing aftermath of war in Gaza, displaced Palestinians are resorting to primitive solutions to secure shelter, highlighting the depth of the humanitarian crisis and mounting living pressures.
In the absence of any clear reconstruction timeline, individual initiatives are emerging as a forced form of self-reliance.
A widely circulated video shows a Gaza resident describing how he built a simple shelter using mud and debris from his destroyed home after being repeatedly displaced.
“This is a step I took after suffering in al-Mawasi and being displaced multiple times,” he said in remarks to Al-Jazeera Mubasher.
“This is a mud house built from what remains of my original home, which had three floors, each with two apartments,” he added, pointing to the scale of his loss.
He explained that delays in reconstruction left him with no choice but to act independently. “We decided to build this house because reconstruction is taking too long, and there’s no news about it. So, you have to rely on yourself and do whatever you can with your own hands.”
All the materials used, he noted, came from the rubble of his home. “We gathered stones one by one, used mud, and I built everything myself, day after day, and stone by stone, until it took this shape.”
Such individual efforts reflect a broader reality faced by thousands in Gaza, where the lack of structured rebuilding plans or institutional support has pushed residents to improvise ways to survive.
Backed by the United States, Israel launched its war on Gaza on 7 October 2023, which lasted two years and resulted in more than 72,000 deaths and over 172,000 injuries, most of them women and children, alongside the destruction of around 90 percent of the territory’s civilian infrastructure.
