Buildings on the verge of collapse portend an imminent danger to Gazans in the absence of reconstruction news

The Israeli war of annihilation left a disastrous impact on the infrastructure of the Gaza Strip, as thousands of residential buildings became vulnerable to collapse, exposing their residents and displaced people to direct danger to their lives.

The occupation forces destroyed more than 85% of the buildings and infrastructure in Gaza City alone, according to a report by the Palestinian NGO Network, forcing residents to risk living in partially damaged buildings.

There are no safe housing alternatives for the residents of Gaza or urgent solutions for the reconstruction of the Strip, in addition to the shortage of shelter centers and the continued closure of crossings to deliver tents and mobile homes to the homeless.

In this context, Major Mahmoud Basal (spokesman for the Civil Defense Service in Gaza) said that the widespread destruction of buildings as a result of the war forced citizens to live in partially destroyed buildings, even if they were about to collapse.

The spokesman explained – during a humanitarian window broadcast by Al Jazeera – that citizens do not care about the danger, and often choose these buildings due to the scarcity of other options and the difficulty of the situation in general.

He pointed out that the Civil Defense issued repeated warnings not to enter these buildings, adding at the same time that people do not find alternatives and always ask, “Where do we go?”

During the past hours, a girl who was not more than nine years old was martyred, and others were injured after a building collapsed in the Al-Sabra neighborhood (south of Gaza City), in an accident that reflects the tragedy of tens of thousands of homes on the verge of collapse.

This is the second building to collapse within 24 hours as a result of it being severely damaged by Israeli bombing during the war of extermination, which resulted in the death of 68,519 Palestinians, the injury of 170,382 others, most of them children and women, and the destruction of 90% of the civilian infrastructure.

As for engineering, Dr. Shafiq Jundia (former Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at the Islamic University of Gaza) explained that buildings are subjected to varying degrees of destruction, ranging from minor partial to severe partial, all the way to complete destruction.

Dr. Shafiq said that simple partial destruction can be lived in after repairing simple damages such as broken windows or damaged doors, while severe partial destruction affects basic elements such as columns and ceilings, and contains cracks that pose a danger to residents.

He pointed out that complete destruction includes buildings that were completely demolished or those whose columns contain defects that make them uninhabitable, stressing the need to seek the help of experts before returning to these buildings.

Dr. Shafiq added that between 300,000 and 400,000 housing units were destroyed during the war, and that the total rubble resulting from the bombing reached about 60 million tons, describing this as a huge burden that would take years to remove.

This month, the government media office in Gaza announced that the rate of destruction in the Palestinian Strip reached about 90%, two years after the war.

Despite the great risks, Palestinians say that living inside bombed homes remains less harsh than staying in tents made of worn fabric, which do not protect from rainwater and the cold in winter.