Gaza, August 23 (QNA) - The Ministry of Public Works and Housing in Gaza Strip hailed the efforts of the State of Qatar in the reconstruction process for the areas affected by the aggression of Israeli occupation forces last year, noting that the rate of progress of these operations has so far reached 40%.
Undersecretary of the Ministry of Public Works and Housing in Gaza Naji Sarhan underscored in his statements the instrumental and leading role the State of Qatar is undertaking to fund the operations that are devoted to reconstructing the infrastructure destroyed by the Israeli occupation forces during the aggression on Gaza Strip last year; noting that what has been accomplished in the reconstruction operations, due to the Israeli aggression in 2021, reached 40%.
He indicated that Gaza Strip needs $3 billion to complete the development and reconstruction processes, emphasizing that the recent aggression unleashed by the Israeli occupation forces on Gaza, which lasted for three days, caused the entire devastation of 25 housing units, including partial devastation of 80 units, wherein 2000 residential units have been partially affected.
He added that the ministry's crews have almost completed the assessment process for the damages, while the damaged residential units due to the latest Israeli aggression on Gaza have yet to be reconstructed, stating that no construction operation has been initiated yet to further build 1000 residential units from the total number of 1700 units that were damaged during the Israeli aggression last year to be added to the 1000 housing units from previous wars, bringing the total of housing units damaged by the entire Israeli assaults that have not been reconstructed so far to roughly 2,300 units.
Naji Sarhan added that there is a deficit of more than 100,000 housing units in Gaza in the field of housing, noting that the sector needs 14,000 housing units annually to equalize the demographic growth, indicating that there are roughly 70,000 housing units that were partially damaged by the wars of 2014, 2021 and 2022, at a time when other sectors in the strip were damaged at a cost of more than USD 800m , including the economy, agriculture and infrastructure. (QNA)