“I Love Gaza” is drawn in graffiti on the wall of a former home, now a pile of debris, in Shejaiya, Gaza Strip. Photo by Alice Su

 

Beit Hanoun, an area close to the Erez crossing with Israel on the Gaza Strip’s northern border, was also one of the most severely damaged areas by land and air in last summer’s conflict. Photo by Alice Su

 

Many residents of Gaza’s damaged or destroyed neighborhoods have set up tents and sheds in the ruins of their former homes. (Beit Hanoun, Gaza Strip) Photo by Alice Su

 

Eight months after last summer’s destruction, little to no reconstruction has taken place in the Gaza Strip, mostly because of a lack of building materials. Photo by Alice Su

 

A piece of artwork by graffiti artist Banksy on the wall of a destroyed home in Beit Hanoun, Gaza Strip. Photo by Alice Su

 

Children play around the Banksy painting and in the ruins of their former neighborhood in Beit Hanoun, Gaza Strip. Photo by Alice Su

 

Beit Lahia is known for its strawberries, grown fresh and sweet on fertile earth. But fewer and fewer farmers are planting them because the ban on exports has led to a glut of produce, low prices, and financial loss. Gazan strawberries used to sell for as much as 20 shekels a kilo, farmers said, back when they could export them to Europe. Now they can’t even send them to the West Bank. When this photo was taken, their price was 2 shekels a kilo. “You might as well take them for free,” the farmers said. Photo by Alice Su

 

An Israeli warning call came to 85-year-old Fatima’s home seven minutes before bombs dropped through her ceiling. (Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip) Photo by Alice Su

 

The remains of a destroyed building twist toward the sky in Khuza’a, another one of the worst hit neighborhoods in Gaza. Photo by Alice Su

 

Palestinian men drive a cart past a heavily damaged street in Khuza’a, Gaza Strip. Photo by Alice Su

 

75-year-old Husn has lived through two wars, two intifadas and three bombardments on Gaza. (Khuza’a, Gaza Strip) Photo by Alice Su

 

A school building with a plaque from relief organization Save the Children remains destroyed in Khuza’a, Gaza Strip. Photo by Alice Su

 

Local football fans crowd in attendance at a match between Beit Lahia residents and Palestinian refugees from Jabaliyya camp. (Beit Lahia, Gaza Strip) Photo by Alice Su

 

Beit Lahia is shrouded in darkness save three spots on the horizon (left to right): Israel across the border, a Hamas training camp, and above, a full moon. Photo by Alice Su

 

Guests, neighbors and family members dance and celebrate a groom-to-be at a bachelor’s party in Beit Lahia, Gaza Strip. Photo by Alice Su

 

Palestinian fishermen unload the morning’s catch of sardines and other fish at the port in Gaza City, Gaza Strip. Photo by Alice Su

 

Israeli patrols prevent Gaza’s fishermen from going past six nautical miles. But deep-sea fish mostly live past seven nautical miles, where the sea floor is rockier. Too many fishermen in too small an area makes for less fish and higher prices, so the merchants who buy the fish for market can barely break even. Meanwhile, the blockade has raised fuel prices, so fishermen are spending beyond their means just to get their boats out to sea. “They’re broken in their minds and their wallets,” the fish auction accountant said. (Gaza City, Gaza Strip) Photo by Alice Su

 

A 19 and 20-year-old pair of brothers and their friend overlook their former home in Shuja’iyya. Sometimes they sell metal and rubble from the building for recycling. Other days they try to salvage old photos, papers and clothes. None can pay for education or find formal work. “Gazans have Israel on one side, Hamas on the other, and here we are just eating shit,” the older brother said. (Shejaiya, Gaza Strip) Photo by Alice Su

Eight months after the latest military conflict between Israel and Hamas, the strip still looks freshly bombed. Reconstruction is almost nonexistent. Yellow flowers are blooming across the decimated neighborhoods of Beit Hanoun, Shejaiya, and Khuza’a. People sit in tents and shacks behind the gnarled carcasses of their homes, waiting for bags of cement stuck across the border, remembering that they have nowhere to flee. One of the only places with ongoing construction in Gaza is the office building of the Ministry of Public Works and Housing. Piles of sand, bricks, and cement sit outside its first floor, where workers are finishing a new wall. Inside, acting deputy minister Naji Sarhan laughs, “That cement? They bought it on the black market.” Even the Ministry itself couldn’t get cement any other way, he said, because building materials are so scarce. 

The war that killed 2,132 Palestinians and 71 Israelis ended with a temporary ceasefire and an international conference in Cairo six weeks later. There, representatives of more than 60 countries agreed to work with the Palestinian unity government toward establishing a lasting ceasefire and paradigm shift that would end the violence, lift Gaza’s blockade, reconstruct the strip, and reestablish economic, social, and political connections between Gaza and the West Bank. But six months after the conference, the donors’ goals are far from being realized. Out of the $3.5 billion pledged reconstruction funds for Gaza, only $935 million (26.8 percent) has been disbursed. According to a recent report by the Association of International Development Agencies (AIDA), 17,500 families are still homeless. Without adequate shelter during the winter, children died of hypothermia while sleeping amid the ruins of their former homes. 

Donors haven’t fulfilled their pledges for a number of reasons. According to Basil Nasser, acting head of the UNDP’s Gaza office, “Donors have fatigue. They can’t pay and keep seeing destruction.” Since Hamas came into power in Gaza in 2007, the strip has suffered three military conflicts with Israel: Operation Cast Lead in 2008-9, which resulted in at least 1,440 Palestinian deaths, over 5,000 injuries, and more than $659 million in infrastructure damage; Operation Pillar of Defense in 2012, which damaged at least 382 residences, 240 schools, three hospitals, and thirteen primary health care centers; and last summer’s Operation Protective Edge, which will cost an estimated $4 billion for relief, recovery, and reconstruction. “There must be a good commitment from Israel and Palestinian factions that brings us a period of quiet,” Nasser said.

In addition, some donors have hesitated to disburse their pledges because of the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) insufficient progress in securing control over Gaza. Hamas, Fatah, and other Palestinian factions formed a unity government last June, aiming to have presidential and parliamentary elections within six months. But since the war, the split between Ramallah and Gaza has deepened, with politicians unable to agree on issues ranging from fuel taxes to government workers’ salaries to staffing Gaza’s checkpoints. Elections are indefinitely delayed. This lack of unity in Palestinian leadership discourages aid efforts from abroad, Nasser said. “Donors feel the government is not very serious about helping Gaza,” he added, noting that the unity government’s leaders had only visited the strip three times in ten months. “We need to see them here easing the blockade, meeting with the ministries, and showing real national reconciliation.”

In the meantime, Israel and Egypt’s blockade of Gaza is not only strangling its economy, but also blocking recovery and access to essential humanitarian needs like electricity, water, and medicine. Would-be donors have little faith that their aid would actually enter the strip or be used for proper recovery and sustainable development. “Donors stopped their projects because they have money but not the materials,” acting deputy minister Sarhan said. The key ingredients for rebuilding Gaza’s 12,400 completely destroyed and 6,600 severely damaged housing units, for example, are cement, aggregate, and steel bars. Israel restricts these items’ entry into Gaza, labeling them as “dual-use” materials that could be used for militant terrorist activity. The international community has tried to work around this by enacting the Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism (GRM), a UN-monitored system of allowing construction materials into Gaza based on individual assessments of each home or infrastructure project. But Israeli authorities still decide whether cases are approved, how much cement to allow them, and how long it takes to come—as of February, Israel had allowed 54,252 tons of cement into Gaza, less than 4 percent of the 1.5 million tons of cement needed for reconstruction. In late March, Israel added wood to the list of restricted materials.

After the last two wars, Gaza had access to reconstruction materials smuggled from Egypt through illegal tunnels. But this time around the border is sealed—the official Rafah crossing is almost entirely closed and Egyptian authorities destroyed hundreds of tunnels. The government there cites security and counterterrorism as reasons for closing the border, especially after a rise in armed attacks in the Sinai after Mohamed Morsi’s removal from power in 2013. But the actual extent of arms flow between Gaza and Sinai is unclear. Since Rafah is closed, the only way of passage is through Erez crossing, which Israel has limited to “exceptional humanitarian cases” only—allowing a monthly average of 6,270 exits in 2014, half of whom were businesspeople.

Amid all this, people in Gaza are barely living. Two years before the latest war, the UN issued a report warning that Gaza would be virtually unlivable by 2020. Ninety-five percent of Gaza’s water was already unfit for human consumption, and Gaza’s only aquifer was predicted to become unusable by 2016. Gaza’s sole power plant was hit twice by Israeli airstrikes during the war, and now functions at half capacity with a schedule of eight hours on, eight hours off. Access to Gaza by air and sea remain forbidden, fishermen are restricted from moving beyond six nautical miles from shore, farmers are blocked from the 35 percent of their agricultural lands located in Access Restricted Areas, and 90 percent of factories and workshops closed since the blockade began in 2007. 

Still, people hold weddings, fish, farm, study, and survive, but without real hope for a long-term future. The unemployment rate is 45 percent, 63 percent for youth. More than 70 percent of the population is food insecure or vulnerable to food insecurity. 100,000 individuals are homeless, and hundreds have drowned to death after escaping Gaza by smuggling onto boats into the Mediterranean. Those who stay are exposed to increasing desperation that some fear will lead to radicalization. 

Alice Su is an Amman-based journalist. Follow her on Twitter @aliceysu.