Ola Moussa-Gaza
The features of the Gaza Valley area in the Gaza Strip began to change, despite the unpleasant odors and garbage spread along the valley, after some residents bought land in the area adjacent to it to build houses on it because of the cheap price compared to its counterpart in the center of Gaza City and the camps which are considered densely populated.
Despite the dangers of living near the Gaza Valley, an area of natural disaster and a pumping station for large quantities of wastewater and non-refined water, and a solid waste drainage, people have not listened to these warnings for more than two years and prefer to stay there because of the lack of funds to buy houses Or land in the city and camp areas.
Environmental problem
The Gaza Valley problem dates back to the 1970s, when the Israeli occupation began constructing dams that diverted the natural waters that feed the Gaza Valley from the highest mountains of Hebron to the agricultural lands in the southern Negev.
| Palestinians resort to building houses near a sewer (Al Jazeera) |
As the years went by, the valley dried up, and the Palestinian Environmental Quality Authority acknowledged that the area was a natural reserve in 2007, through funded projects, but stopped after the Palestinian split, and turned to a dumping site for sewage and garbage as a result of the wrong behavior of the people, and lack of attention by the authorities concerned; Environmentally.
Properly constructed homes are about 200 meters from the valley, while poorly constructed homes are a few meters away from the wastewater stream, which breeds harmful insects and mosquitoes, which deprive people of sleep.
Ahmad Joudeh, 46, built a one-story house a year ago in the Gaza Valley area, after having difficulty in obtaining a separate house in the Nuseirat refugee camp, due to his lack of economic potential, and he lived five years in rent apartments.
Rent bored
"I want to live in an independent house, I don't have much money and I'm tired of renting houses and expensive apartments," Joudeh said. .
"I bought land near the valley at a price five times lower than any land near Nuseirat camp, and I built my house with simple tools," he said. "It is important to me that I have no housing and no money to rent. The area is full of residents, and I hope they will find a solution to clean the area, since it is Filled with people. "
Mounir Lafi, 38, found that the value of the land on an area of 250 meters near the Gaza Valley, and the construction of the small house; seven times less than the purchase of land in the center of Gaza City, ignoring any environmental risks, and says that he paid over seven years the amount of rent equivalent to the value of Apartment, and he decided to live near the Gaza Valley to escape the rent.
| Unsanitary conditions for residents of Gaza Valley (Al Jazeera) |
Ayman Nasser, 51, built six months ago his home about 20 meters from the dump, after he was evicted by the owner of an apartment for rent in the city of Zahra (central Gaza Strip) to accumulate rent without payment.
"Many of the houses built in the area are very poor," Nasser said. "The residents have fled the search of government land where security forces are driving people who are staying illegally, but here we are living in an environmental disaster better than homelessness on the streets."
Escape from high prices
The family of Jamal Abu Dawood, 43, escaped from high prices and built a house in the Nahr al-Bared area (south of Gaza Strip) amid landfills and waste water, although it does not contain any sewage network, and relies on cesspits that damage the soil and groundwater.
"This area is no longer desirable," he says. "Poverty and the search for housing, even if it is unsafe, and to find shelter that is important to us, so we endure the natural conditions and the smell of waste every day.
Gaza needs 100,000 apartments
Naji Sarhan, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Public Works and Housing in Gaza, points out that families living in areas near health drains and waste gatherings are the most affected families and that they are the top priorities of their work to secure apartments.
He explained that the size of the housing deficit in the Gaza Strip reached one hundred thousand apartments, due to the population density in the Gaza Strip and the large number of poor families who need houses, and ten people reside in one apartment.He says that the Gaza Strip needs 14 thousand new apartments annually. Geographic rate and population growth remained.
| Children playing near their house adjacent to a garbage dump in Khan Younis |
Housing projects
"Unfortunately, housing projects will not meet the needs of all families in Gaza, especially those living in marginalized areas, near sanitation and landfill areas. There are few donor projects, and each apartment in the projects costs $ 30,000. We have renovated 3,000 homes and delivered 500," he said. "But tens of thousands of poor families in remote areas still need it."
He stated that the Ministry of Public Works and Housing has succeeded in building housing projects during the last two years in securing houses for residents who lived in cemeteries and others living in the north of the Gaza Strip, and moved them to the east of Gaza City in Hajar Al-Deek. Projects are linked to the arrival of external grants.