Demotix/Mhamed Hajjar. All rights reserved.Time has stood still in Gaza over the past year. Since the end of Israel’s ferocious 51 day bombardment of Gaza last summer, just one of the nearly 10,000 homes destroyed has been rebuilt and 13,167 refugee families remain displaced.
In a damning assessment of the recovery effort in Gaza earlier this year, the Association of International Development Agencies (AIDA) reported that "reconstruction and recovery have barely begun, and people in Gaza remain in dire straits". A total of $3.5 billion was pledged by international donors at a Cairo conference last October in the aftermath of ‘Operation Protective Edge’, Israel’s third war in six years—following ‘Pillar of Cloud’ (2012) and ‘Cast Lead’ (2008-09)—which AIDA says "inflicted unprecedented destruction and human suffering in Gaza". But by April this year, AIDA reported that only 26.8 percent of the money had been released and no attempt was made to seek "accountability to address violations of international law". Winnie Byanyima, executive director of Oxfam, one of the signatories to the AIDA report went further when she said:
"There has been little rebuilding, no permanent ceasefire agreement and no plan to end the blockade. The international community is walking with eyes wide open into the next avoidable conflict, by upholding the status quo they themselves said must change."
