As bleak as ever

NOT one of the 19,000 homes in Gaza destroyed during last summer’s war with Israel has been rebuilt. Six months after would-be donors pledged to raise $3.5 billion, the situation is bleak. Barely a quarter of the promised cash has arrived (see chart). Around 100,000 of Gaza’s 1.8m people remain homeless after families spent a rainy winter in tents, trailers and amid the rubble.

The main reason is that Israel’s government lets Gazans import only a fraction of the cement they need, arguing that it can be used for military purposes—and for building tunnels. * Israel blames Palestinian infighting for preventing implementation of a mechanism to import building materials under the control of the Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the West Bank. European, Arab and UN officials agree the bickering has delayed reconstruction. So what little Gazans get is on the black market. “It’s like cement is a radioactive material,” says Naji Yusuf Sarhan, Gaza’s deputy minister of housing.

The UN is supervising the flow of material. Just one tightly controlled crossing from Israel into Gaza allows commercial goods. Only a tenth of the 5m tonnes of materials required has so far been let in, says the UN. At this rate, it would take 20 years to rebuild the territory, says Mr Sarhan. To buy on the black market you need a lot of cash. Most Gazans are poor. Half have no job.

Omar Fayyad worries that his four-storey house in Beit Hanoun, a town on the northern edge of the strip, may collapse and bury his family. An Israeli shell landed next door, so the columns supporting it are buckling. “We’ve received nothing: no money, no materials, no cement, no iron, nothing,” he says. He has rigged up a pulley system to clear the debris, moving slabs of concrete and twisted metal into a sewage-filled pit nearby, hoping to sell the material.

Israel has blockaded Gaza since 2007, when Hamas, the Palestinians’ Islamist movement, took over after winning an election and violently forcing out its rival, the nationalist Fatah group. More recently Egypt’s government, which in 2013 ousted a short-lived Islamist one at home that was friendly to Hamas, has imposed even tighter restrictions. This year the main crossing between Gaza and Egypt, at Rafah, has been open for just five days.

Robert Serry, the UN’s outgoing envoy to the Palestinian territories, has proposed a five-year truce to provide for Israel’s siege to be lifted if Hamas disavows violence. Not everyone likes the idea. “It’s like morphine to pacify the people,” says Khaled al-Batsh of Islamic Jihad, which is even more militant than Hamas. But a senior Hamas man says Mr Serry’s idea is being considered. Three wars in six years have not helped Hamas, except by showing Israelis that Hamas cannot be wished away.

If a truce were to hold, Hamas would first have to settle its differences with Fatah. The two groups agreed on a unity government last April, but it never really got going. Hamas still controls security forces in Gaza, whereas the Palestinian Authority, which is dominated by Fatah, the bigger part of a would-be Palestinian state, refuses to pay salaries for civil servants in Gaza. Rami Hamdallah, the Palestinian prime minister, has made only three brief trips there since June, accomplishing little.

A recent downpour flooded Gaza’s roads and makeshift shelters. Traders in the market in Shati, a crowded waterfront refugee camp, idle over cups of tea. Customers are few. Many shopkeepers earn too little to pay the rent. To provide food for a family is a big achievement, says Abu Rizzaq, a baker. “It’s all we can hope for. There is no future.”

* This article has been amended to include the fact that reconstruction is being hampered by Palestinian factional rivalry.