International Group Says It Will Take 20 Years To Build Adequate Housing For Gaza
Source: Associated Press
By PETER ENAV Associated Press
First Posted: August 30, 2014 - 10:49 am
JERUSALEM An international organization involved in assessing post-conflict reconstruction says it will take 20 years under current levels of restrictions to rebuild the Gaza Strip's battered and neglected housing stock following the war between Hamas and Israel.
Most of the new building would be to make up for the current housing deficit, rather than to address damage from fighting between Israel and Palestinian militants.
The assessment by Shelter Cluster, chaired by the Norwegian Refugee Council with the participation of the U.N. refugee agency and the Red Cross, underscores the complexities involved in an overall reconstruction program for the Gaza Strip, which some Palestinian officials have estimated could cost in excess of $6 billion.
It is based on the current level of goods permitted to be moved from Israel to Gaza a level that could easily be expanded, which would shorten the time needed to address the territory's housing needs.
Read more: http://www.tribtown.com/view/story/9f452c86f5e84d528fafee28e7089ea9/ML--Israel-Palestinians
ColesCountyDem
(6,943 posts)cpwm17
(3,829 posts)and to defend themselves when Israel attacks. There is no other people on this earth that need a means to defend themselves more than the Palestinians.
Israel needs to pay a price for invading the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians can't allow Israel to get away with such atrocities with impunity. Israel lost quite a few soldiers during the invasion thanks to the Palestinians' defensive measures. Perhaps Israel will think twice next time before invading.
hack89
(39,171 posts)They serve no legitimate purpose.
ColesCountyDem
(6,943 posts)cpwm17
(3,829 posts)ColesCountyDem
(6,943 posts)intaglio
(8,170 posts)Perhaps the tunnels would fester if Israel allowed the rebuilding of the harbour at Gaza City and removed the inhumane blockade of the Gaza Strip.
ColesCountyDem
(6,943 posts)You? Hamas?
intaglio
(8,170 posts)who, despite your attempt at conflation, are not Hamas.
If only arms were brought in then by now Hamas would have more guns than the US military
ColesCountyDem
(6,943 posts)I'll not hold my breath, since asphyxiation isn't on today's agenda.
P.S. -- Your accusation about me conflating anything is pure horseshit.
ColesCountyDem
(6,943 posts)Exultant Democracy
(6,594 posts)the more tunnels the less time it will take.
ColesCountyDem
(6,943 posts)Diverting concrete and timber to build tunnels creates a shortage of those same materials for building homes. Logic is a useful thing, when one knows how to use it.
Threedifferentones
(1,070 posts)With Gaza unfit for habitation Israel will have plenty of room for expansion. The colonialism (aka violent conquest) that began with a British "mandate" will be completed by Netan-yahoo and his conservative, bloodthirsty army.
It is ironic, though, that by now even the Brits are horrified by the amount of bloodshed needed to crush the spirit of the Palestinians.
ColesCountyDem
(6,943 posts)Response to ColesCountyDem (Reply #66)
Post removed
Sancho
(9,067 posts)Chemisse
(30,803 posts)GoneFishin
(5,217 posts)PDJane
(10,103 posts)"Fighting between Hamas and the IDF" should be "mass punishment" and "population control by violence."
HERVEPA
(6,107 posts)PDJane
(10,103 posts)Response to PDJane (Reply #4)
ann--- This message was self-deleted by its author.
hack89
(39,171 posts)Agree to an inspection scheme that does not allow them to rearm or condemn their people to wretched poverty.
I know what they will choose.
intaglio
(8,170 posts)For allowing the continued oppression of an occupied area ...
Gaza falls under the definition of occupied area because of the restrictions and punishments put on the inhabitants are primarily under Israeli control.
hack89
(39,171 posts)The restrictions will remain in place until Hamas disarms. They have no right to shoot rockets and then complain when Israel acts to stop them.
Before the rockets and suicide bombers Palestinians routinely worked decent jobs in Israel and there was a free flow of goods. Perhaps Hamas should take the first step to return to that place.
intaglio
(8,170 posts)As such it can be withdrawn unilaterally.
And as an aside you might not want to praise the UN too much because, so I have been told by the groupies for Israel, the UN is biased against Israel and all of the condemnations it issues about Israeli actions are anti-Semitic.
hack89
(39,171 posts)hamas can certainly decide to stop acquiring offensive weapons and stop attacking Israel.
intaglio
(8,170 posts)and a typical Israeli talking point (lie). The origins of the conflict lie with the Nakba - look it up. The oppression of the Palestinians has been a constant policy of the Israeli State and your quaint ideas would mean no oppressed peoples anywhere could revolt.
hack89
(39,171 posts)They only work when they make a country ungovernable. With Israel walling off the Palestinians, Hamas cannot do that to Israel. Revolt by Hamas simply means extending the blockade and more misery for the Palestinians.
intaglio
(8,170 posts)Stop trying to have your cake as well as having it
hack89
(39,171 posts)They will never be strong enough to win.
intaglio
(8,170 posts)and winning is the only justification for resistance.
2 words: Warsaw Ghetto
hack89
(39,171 posts)The Jews in Warsaw did not have a way out. The people in Gaza do - they simply need to renounce violence and stop shooting rockets. There was no blockade before the rockets. There was no wall before the suicide bombers.
The people of Gaza are not facing death in an extermination camp - your comparison is wrong.
intaglio
(8,170 posts)Have you looked at the meaning of the word "blockade"?
You do know the IDF has the authority to shoot Gazans who cross the border or even penetrate the miles wide exclusion zone inside Gaza? You do know that Gazan fishing boats going more than 2 miles from the coast can be sunk without warning?
What sort of blinkers do you have to wear to obscure the vicious actions of the Israeli state? Hamas is nasty but at least it has an actual oppressed population to justify it's actions.
hack89
(39,171 posts)The people of Gaza use to routinely commute to good jobs in Israel. There was a free flow of goods.
You don't like the blockade. Fine- suggest a way for the blockade to be lifted while ensuring Hamas cannot smuggle in powerful military weapons.
intaglio
(8,170 posts)Gaza was established as a purportedly free zone for Palestinians. Since it inception it has always been under Israeli control, hence they are considered as an occupying force under international law. Even when the Egyptian border was open they always insisted on oversight of imports. As the years have gone by it has become a concentration camp (I use the term in its proper sense not as a synonym for death camp).
It was always blockaded to some degree and whenever Israel was at war with its neighbours and whenever there were troubles on the West Bank that blockade was made even more harsh. Israel has oppressed the Palestinians and seeks to deny them rights and you want to justify the sickening Israeli crimes and oppression by post hoc reasoning.
hack89
(39,171 posts)intaglio
(8,170 posts)Of course they do despite Israel being an outlaw state. Therefore Hamas has an equal right.
Both Hamas and Israel act as terrorists with the caveats that Israel uses far more destructive weapons than Hamas, has far better targetting capabilities than Hamas, has far better defences than Hamas and kills far more civilians than Hamas.
hack89
(39,171 posts)what do you expect is going to happen? They will fight until one side wins. Perhaps your solution is best - let Hamas acquire a strong military. They can then fight that winner takes all war that would inevitably result.
intaglio
(8,170 posts)and give them the opportunity to rid themselves of Hamas.
I do not think for one second that that will happen as it suits Israel to have a convenient whipping boy to distract from their vile actions.
hack89
(39,171 posts)if Israel gives any concession to Hamas while the rockets are flying then what incentive does Hamas have to stop? Israel is right to say that Hamas gets nothing through violence.
intaglio
(8,170 posts)It remains two groups of bandits blaming each other and what you want is one side to stop its actions whilst letting the other act unchecked.
If you think a chronology of wrong doing is important then you have to go back to the Nakba and the terrorist Lehi group (which became Likud)
hack89
(39,171 posts)Israel can live with the status quo - Hamas can't. Gaza needs peace to rebuild. Hamas owes that opportunity to it's people.
intaglio
(8,170 posts)Ever thought of studying ethics or acquiring some morals?
hack89
(39,171 posts)And do absolutely nothing until Hamas comes around. Heighten the walls, tighten the blockade but not shoot back. That would be a proportional response to rockets, right?
hack89
(39,171 posts)Just not in this case.
intaglio
(8,170 posts)Essentially you cannot see beyond your love affair with a criminal state. Somehow you have idealised the State of Israel into some sort of faultless paradise.
Your views are worth nothing except as an examples of flawed reasoning and obvious subjection to the Israeli propaganda machine.
hack89
(39,171 posts)And Israel are the criminals? I forgot, blowing up buses and pizza parlors is resistance.
King_David
(14,851 posts)Nonsense.
Prior to 1967 Gaza was occupied by Egypt.
intaglio
(8,170 posts)I said control. Word redefinition courtesy of K_D
King_David
(14,851 posts)Prior to 1967 ?
Very interesting grasp of history. Do tell is all how that worked...
Response to intaglio (Reply #11)
ann--- This message was self-deleted by its author.
cstanleytech
(26,236 posts)Response to hack89 (Reply #7)
ann--- This message was self-deleted by its author.
Response to Purveyor (Original post)
ann--- This message was self-deleted by its author.
hack89
(39,171 posts)Last edited Sun Aug 31, 2014, 12:12 AM - Edit history (1)
Maybe then there will be peace.
PDJane
(10,103 posts)Hearing Hamas, Hamas, Hamas is getting absolutely tiring.
The fact is that Israel is using the military wing of Hamas as an excuse. There is nothing that 'forced' Israel to go after Gaza and kill so many, and destroy so much. That is a choice, and it was the wrong choice.
Should they pay? Yes. Perhaps they will pay through boycott, divestment and sanctions. There will not be peace until Israel stops occupying territory, or gives the right of return and learns to live with her Palestinian neighbours as full citizens.
hack89
(39,171 posts)Yet they did.
There will never be full right of return. Perhaps for those that were alive in 48 with reparations for their descendants. But not full RoR. It would be national suicide. I know that would please you but it will never happen.
PDJane
(10,103 posts)The bible is not history, and collective guilt, racism, and repression makes a poor state.
hack89
(39,171 posts)but if it is going to happen, it will not be self inflicted. If Hamas (and you) wants all the Jews gone, they will have to do it themselves.
hack89
(39,171 posts)I don't care what the bible says - all religions are fictional and potentially dangerous.
PDJane
(10,103 posts)What in the name of hell would I want all Jews gone fore?
What I want is fairness. And yes, the kind of actions that Israel is committing will lead to more pogroms and hatred, real anti-semitism, not the made-up, you're an anti-semite because you don't want the jews to take over Palestine. Get a grip.
Israel is not the victim, nor has Israel been the victim from the beginning. A country that spends most of its GDP and a huge amount of foreign aid on weaponry doesn't have a lifestyle to be envied. Moreover, a theocracy isn't a democracy, especially when it has separate standards for Arabs and everyone else...and for Jews. When you decide that Ethiopian Jews shouldn't bear children, and make sure that they don't by giving them birth control injections against their will......well. It's a bankrupt ideology.
One of the best things about Judaism has always been the tolerance it has shown. That's not in evidence here.
hack89
(39,171 posts)what land must they return? Hamas thinks that all of Israel is occupied territory - what are your thoughts on the matter?
PDJane
(10,103 posts)Last edited Wed Sep 3, 2014, 07:42 PM - Edit history (1)
Then it should be behind the 1948 borders....or give up the pretensions of being a religious Jewish state. Israel should either compensate for the land stolen during that time, or allow right of return.
Stealing land by killing your neighbours and running them from land that has been theirs without doing anything to compensate them is just theft. In fact, the state of Israel has been based on terrorism and theft. It's not right or fair.
hack89
(39,171 posts)the point of my original post is that full RoR is what many Palestinians want, including Hamas. Whether they are willing to accept anything less than that will have a significant impact on whether lasting peace is possible or not.
PDJane
(10,103 posts)Frankly, I don't blame them for wanting right of return, and reparations. Israel needs to get out of the West Bank, and stop this brutal occupation. Period. Endit.
hack89
(39,171 posts)which, by the way, I agree with you on. For many Palestinians, including Hamas, RoR also includes pre-1967 borders - in other words Israel proper and not the occupied territories.
But Israel will not withdraw until there is a certainty of peace. That is the premise of any deal - land for peace. It has been the basis of peace negotiations from the very beginning.
PDJane
(10,103 posts)Israelis want peace, Palestinians want peace......Israel does not want peace, and has proven this over and over and over again.
hack89
(39,171 posts)First the PLO and now Hamas - when have the Palestinians not been trying to kill as many Jews as they can?
PDJane
(10,103 posts)Under the rules of the Geneva conventions, the Palestinians are allowed to fight an occupation. Israel is an occupier, under those selfsame rules. Moreover, Israel is breaching those rules by not supplying the Palestinians with sufficient water, electricity, health care, housing and transportation. This is the thing that seems to be overlooked in the American popular narrative.
hack89
(39,171 posts)You know that.
PDJane
(10,103 posts)Including foodstuffs, building materials, and medical supplies.
Enough of this pointing fingers at the Palestinians. Israel has more weaponry, kills far more people, including children, and has a very fine propaganda machine. They have been using conflict to steal Palestinian land from the beginning. Pounding a home into rubble to kill a man who possibly wasn't there....and killing his wife and child in the process....is as bad as those suicide bombings, and is done more often. Moreover, it will be harder to find the person who 'ordered' those suicide bombings, as most of them were spontaneous. It's really easy to find the war criminals in Israel.
And Israel has invoked the Hannibal Doctrine, killing their own soldiers and flattening blocks of Palestinian homes so that their soldiers won't be taken as hostages.
That business about the suicide bombers and the rockets and how terrible it all is that Hamas is the chosen leaders of Gaza is getting thin. You know as well as I do that there is a political wing as well as a military wing of Hamas. They should have decided, or should decide, to do what the Irish did, and change the name of one of those wings. It would go better in the end. And, of course, it would stop a lot of the idiotic finger waggling.
hack89
(39,171 posts)And good Hamas is helpless to stop the rockets and suicide bombings? That is what you believe?
PDJane
(10,103 posts)I really don't care that rockets come from Hamas, nor that a suicide bomber comes from Hamas. Hamas, Hamas, Hamas. They don't create the damage that Israel does. Ever. At all. They can't, because they aren't as well-armed as Israel, and they don't have the power. Israel is, and has been from the beginning, the aggressor. Call it what you like, but it is genocide.....or, if you like, ethnic cleansing. One child every 3 days for 14 years. That doesn't count the adult population; according to Israel, every adult Palestinian is a terrorist.
Oh, yes, and Richard Falk would disagree with your decision that the right to resist an occupation is not specifically protected.
The obligations of the occupier are specifically stated. The duties of the occupying power are spelled out primarily in the 1907 Hague Regulations (arts 42-56) and the Fourth Geneva Convention (GC IV, art. 27-34 and 47-78), as well as in certain provisions of Additional Protocol I and customary international humanitarian law.
Agreements concluded between the occupying power and the local authorities cannot deprive the population of occupied territory of the protection afforded by international humanitarian law (GC IV, art. 47) and protected persons themselves can in no circumstances renounce their rights (GC IV, art. 8).
The main rules o f the law applicable in case of occupation state that:
The occupant does not acquire sovereignty over the territory.
Occupation is only a temporary situation, and the rights of the occupant are limited to the extent of that period.
The occupying power must respect the laws in force in the occupied territory, unless they constitute a threat to its security or an obstacle to the application of the international law of occupation.
The occupying power must take measures to restore and ensure, as far as possible, public order and safety.
To the fullest extent of the means available to it, the occupying power must ensure sufficient hygiene and public health standards, as well as the provision of food and medical care to the population under occupation.
The population in occupied territory cannot be forced to enlist in the occupier's armed forces.
Collective or individual forcible transfers of population from and within the occupied territory are prohibited.
Transfers of the civilian population of the occupying power into the occupied territory, regardless whether forcible or voluntary, are prohibited.
Collective punishment is prohibited.
The taking of hostages is prohibited.
Reprisals against protected persons or their property are prohibited.
The confiscation of private property by the occupant is prohibited.
The destruction or seizure of enemy property is prohibited, unless absolutely required by military necessity during the conduct of hostilities.
Cultural property must be respected.
People accused of criminal offences shall be provided with proceedings respecting internationally recognized judicial guarantees (for example, they must be informed of the reason for their arrest, charg ed with a specific offence and given a fair trial as quickly as possible).
Personnel of the International Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement must be allowed to carry out their humanitarian activities. The ICRC, in particular, must be given access to all protected persons, wherever they are, whether or not they are deprived of their liberty.
There is no way to support what Israel is doing without demonizing Palestinians, and I refuse to do that. Ergo. this conversation is going to go around in circles, and I'm done.
hack89
(39,171 posts)of course you are done. All you have left is a twisted interpretation of the Geneva conventions and implied support for suicide bombings and other act of terrorism.
hack89
(39,171 posts)It is crucial to note that occupation per se is not a crime under international law, and that the IHL provisions referred to above, pertaining as they do to jus in bello, apply equally to situations of legal and illegal occupation.[2] Further, while the International Court of Justice has repeatedly affirmed that international human rights law does not cease to apply during wartime, as lex specialis IHL principles should supercede any inconsistent principles deriving from other normative frameworks including, it would seem, the right to self-determination (which is not listed as a non-derogable right under art. 4(2) ICCPR).
This does not mean that resisters to occupation are never entitled to any protection under IHL. Where resistance has reached the intensity of an armed conflict, art. 4(A)(2) of Geneva Convention III does grant that members of organized resistance movements connected with one of the parties to the conflict (that is, one of the belligerent states[3]) are entitled to prisoner of war status, meaning that they cannot be prosecuted merely for having participated in hostilities. However, Jean Pictet of the International Committee of the Red Cross clarifies that this provision should not be interpreted as conferring a general right to resist, the crucial point being that it only grants protection to individuals belonging to one of the belligerent parties and not to the population as a whole].[4] His commentary make it clear that the drafters of the Geneva Conventions, like the court in Christiansen, did not recognize a general right of resistance for occupied populations. To benefit from art. 4(A)(2) protection, combatants are required to be under the command of a person responsible for his subordinates, wear a distinctive and recognizable sign to distinguish them from non-combatants, carry their arms openly, and comply with the rules and customs of war. Art. 44(3) of Additional Protocol I provides limited exceptions to the requirement for combatants to always distinguish themselves from civilians, which have been understood to apply specifically to situations of national liberation and resistance to occupation from whom wearing uniforms may not always be practicable.[5] This leniency has the effect of making it harder to prosecute certain categories of individuals resisting occupation simply for taking part in hostilities (resisters can still of course be attacked during the course of hostilities and can be prosecuted subsequently for any other violations of domestic law or IHL or can even be detained indefinitely if this is deemed imperative for security, as noted above).
http://www.legalfrontiers.ca/2011/03/self-determination-and-the-%E2%80%9Cright%E2%80%9D-to-resist-occupation/
MisterP
(23,730 posts)GoneFishin
(5,217 posts)They can be removed with bulldozers or bombs. Either way people will be easier to uproot and shove off the land if they have no houses to live in.
The reconstruction will proceed in a substantial way when hell freezes over, because the purpose of bombing the shit out of Gaza was to destroy as many houses and as much infrastructure as possible.
Spoiled little brother will never allow any substantial reconstruction to proceed unchecked. Never.
oberliner
(58,724 posts)There are no Israeli settlements in Gaza and they won't be building any.
It's mostly just bloodsport for the Israeli public, to be enacted every time the likud coalition gets a little shaky.
Best part is, all the non-Israeli spectators who treat the slaughter like pay-per-view, sending their dollars - both through taxes and donations - to ensure a ready supply of dead Arabs for them to jerk their cocks over.
joshcryer
(62,269 posts)Palestinian are forced refugee status by the racist "right of return" which deems every single descendant of a Palestinian male a "refugee." This includes several million "palestinians" who are not even born in the contested territories.
The Arab League is just as, if not more so, culpable, as Israel. Israel doesn't make such racist designations for Palestinian people, if anything, Israel takes them in and protects certain subsets which they allow to leave for asylum in other (pro-humanitarian) countries.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)Tell me, what do strawberries taste like in your universe?
joshcryer
(62,269 posts)More Palestinians are in refugee camps outside of the contested territories than in them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_refugee_camps
But it's quaint how easily you dismiss this very important aspect of the conflict.