Al-Faraheen village, Gaza – Palestinian farmers in the Gaza Strip are struggling to recover from the 51-day war between Israel and Palestinian armed groups that ended with a ceasefire in late August 2014.
Twenty years ago, Jaber Abu Daqqa, 61, moved from his hometown of Khuzaa to nearby al-Faraheen, a village that touches Israel’s heavily militarised border with Gaza.
“I lost sheep and goats during the war,” he told Al Jazeera. “I came back to this house and found it mostly destroyed. It will cost me $10,000 to repair, I think. I plan on paying for it myself,” he noted, explaining that he prefers not to wait on international aid.
Since the war ended nearly half a year ago, the international community has failed to make good on promises to rebuild Gaza. In many towns and villages across the coastal strip, reconstruction has yet to begin.
Israel has launched three large-scale military offensives in Gaza since late 2008.
Writing on his Facebook page, hardline Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that “a fourth engagement with Hamas is inevitable, and that what’s important is to plan … now how to avoid the fifth”.
Farmers in areas on the border say their situation has only worsened since the last war ended, pointing to the Israeli military’s frequent incursions into their lands and its practice of firing live ammunition at farmers who enter the “buffer zone” between Gaza and Israel.