UN: Gaza Needs Construction Material Before Winter

DIAA HADID

JEBALYA, Gaza Strip (AP) — A senior U.N. official on Monday called on Israel to allow building materials into Gaza, warning that the thousands displaced by an Israeli offensive early this year face a cold winter without proper accommodations.

Thousands of homes in Gaza were damaged during Israel's fierce three-week operation against the territory's militant Hamas rulers.

Although the offensive ended in January, the homes still can't be repaired because Israel does not allow raw materials to enter the territory as a part of its two-year blockade to pressure Hamas.

"Without repair, winter winds and rain will render damaged homes uninhabitable," Maxwell Gaylard, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, said before touring a smashed up Gaza neighborhood.

"The winter will be particularly hard on the children of Gaza, whose capacity to withstand the rigors of a cold wet winter has already been severely undermined by a marked deterioration of basic services," he added.

The Gaza Strip, a shabby crowded sliver of land on the Mediterranean, has short rainy winters that usually begin by December.