Palestinians Appeal for Help with Short-term Shelter in Gaza

Palestinians transport aid supplies on an animal-drawn cart, amid a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, in Gaza City, February 3, 2025. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Palestinians transport aid supplies on an animal-drawn cart, amid a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, in Gaza City, February 3, 2025. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
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Palestinians Appeal for Help with Short-term Shelter in Gaza

Palestinians transport aid supplies on an animal-drawn cart, amid a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, in Gaza City, February 3, 2025. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Palestinians transport aid supplies on an animal-drawn cart, amid a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, in Gaza City, February 3, 2025. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas

With fighting in Gaza paused, Palestinians are appealing for billions of dollars in emergency aid - from heavy machinery to clear rubble to tents and caravans to house people made homeless by Israeli bombardment.

One official from the Palestinian Authority estimated immediate funding needs of $6.5 billion for temporary housing for Gaza's more than two million people, even before the huge task of long-term reconstruction begins.

US special Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff estimated last week that rebuilding could take 10-15 years. But before that, Gazans will have to live somewhere, Reuters reported.

Hamas, the militant Palestinian group that has moved quickly to reassert control of Gaza after a temporary ceasefire began last month, says Gaza has immediate needs for 200,000 tents and 60,000 caravans.

In the Egyptian city of El-Arish, not far from the Rafah crossing with Gaza, about 1,000 trucks carrying aid, including food, medical supplies, caravans and tents, lined up awaiting entry to Gaza.

"We have trucks carrying aid and tents. We came from Jordan and we were supposed to go straight to the Rafah crossing to provide this aid to the Palestinian side and the Gaza Strip," said truck driver Rami El-Edwan.

Edwan said he and his fellow truck drivers could not figure out the delay's cause, having had conflicting explanations from the various parties operating the crossing and delivering aid.

In addition, it says there is urgent need for heavy digging equipment to begin clearing millions of tonnes of rubble left by the war, both to clear ground for housing and to recover more than 10,000 bodies estimated to be buried there.

Two Egyptian sources said heavy machinery was waiting at the border crossing and was due to be sent into Gaza from Tuesday.

World Food Program official Antoine Renard said Gaza's food imports had surged since the ceasefire and were already at two or three times monthly levels before the truce began.

'DUAL USE' GOODS FACE IMPEDIMENTS

But he said there were still impediments to importing medical and shelter equipment which would be vital to sustain the population but which Israel considers to have potential "dual use" – civilian or military.

"This is a reminder to you that many of the items that are dual use need also to enter into Gaza like medical and also tents," he told reporters in Geneva.

More than half a million people who fled northern Gaza have returned home, many with nothing more than what they could carry with them on foot. They were confronted by an unrecognizable wasteland of rubble where their houses once stood.

"I came back to Gaza City to find my house in ruins, with no place else to stay, no tents, no caravans, and not even a place we can rent as most of the city was destroyed," said Gaza businessman, Imad Turk, whose house and wood factory in Gaza City were destroyed by Israeli airstrikes during the war.

"We don't know when the reconstruction will begin, we don't know if the truce will hold, we don't want to be forgotten by the world," Turk told Reuters via a chat app.



Iran Denies Aiding Yemen’s Houthi Militias after US Strikes

 People gather on the rubble of a house hit by a US strike in Saada, Yemen March 16, 2025. (Reuters)
People gather on the rubble of a house hit by a US strike in Saada, Yemen March 16, 2025. (Reuters)
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Iran Denies Aiding Yemen’s Houthi Militias after US Strikes

 People gather on the rubble of a house hit by a US strike in Saada, Yemen March 16, 2025. (Reuters)
People gather on the rubble of a house hit by a US strike in Saada, Yemen March 16, 2025. (Reuters)

Iran on Sunday once again denied aiding Yemen's Houthi militias after the United States launched a wave of airstrikes against them and President Donald Trump warned that Tehran would be held “fully accountable” for their actions.

The Houthi-run Health Ministry said the strikes killed at least 31 people, including women and children, and wounded over 100. The Houthis said one strike hit two homes in northern Saada province, killing four children and a woman. The Houthi-run Al-Masirah TV showed images of what it said were the bodies.

The Houthis have repeatedly targeted international shipping in the Red Sea and launched missiles and drones at Israel in what the militias said were acts of solidarity with the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where Israel has been at war with Hamas, another Iranian ally.

The attacks stopped when a fragile Israel-Hamas ceasefire took hold in Gaza in January, but the Houthis had threatened to renew them after Israel cut off the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza this month.

The US and others have long accused Iran of providing military aid to the Houthis and the US Navy has seized Iranian-made missile parts and other weaponry it said were bound for the group, which controls Yemen's capital, Sanaa, and the country's north.

Gen. Hossein Salami, head of Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, denied his country was involved in the Houthi attacks, saying it “plays no role in setting the national or operational policies” of the militant groups it is allied with across the region, according to state-run TV.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, in a post on X, urged the US to halt the strikes and said Washington cannot dictate Iran's foreign policy.

Trump on Saturday had vowed to use “overwhelming lethal force” until the Houthis cease their attacks on shipping along the vital maritime corridor.

The airstrikes come a few days after the Houthis said they would resume attacks on Israeli vessels sailing off Yemen in response to Israel’s latest blockade on Gaza. There have been no Houthi attacks reported since then.

The Houthis had targeted over 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones, sinking two and killing four sailors, during their campaign targeting military and civilian ships between the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023 and January of this year, when the ceasefire in Gaza took effect.

The United States, Israel and Britain have previously hit Houthi-held areas in Yemen, but Saturday’s operation was conducted solely by the US It was the first strike on the Houthis under the second Trump administration.