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Gaza Carpenter Crafts Wooden Sandals for Daughters as War Rages

Palestinian Saber Dawas crafts wooden sandals due to a shortage of footwear in the enclave and the lack of financial means to afford those which are available in the market, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis in the the southern Gaza Strip, September 9, 2024. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem Purchase Licensing Rights
Palestinian Saber Dawas crafts wooden sandals due to a shortage of footwear in the enclave and the lack of financial means to afford those which are available in the market, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis in the the southern Gaza Strip, September 9, 2024. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem Purchase Licensing Rights
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Gaza Carpenter Crafts Wooden Sandals for Daughters as War Rages

Palestinian Saber Dawas crafts wooden sandals due to a shortage of footwear in the enclave and the lack of financial means to afford those which are available in the market, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis in the the southern Gaza Strip, September 9, 2024. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem Purchase Licensing Rights
Palestinian Saber Dawas crafts wooden sandals due to a shortage of footwear in the enclave and the lack of financial means to afford those which are available in the market, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis in the the southern Gaza Strip, September 9, 2024. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem Purchase Licensing Rights

Twelve-year-old Heba Dawas lost her footwear in the chaos while fleeing Israel's military offensive in Gaza.

So her carpenter father made wooden-soled sandals for her so she can tread more safely through the tonnes of rubble, hot sand and twisted metal of the besieged Palestinian enclave.

"When we were displaced, we started running and the sandals broke," said Heba, who lives in a tent camp with her family in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis.

"I threw them off and started running. Our feet became very hot. So, we had to make sandals from wood," she said, walking on hot sand with her new footwear.

Her father Saber Dawas, 39, came up with the idea after finding the price of sandals too expensive. Now his daughter does not have to go barefoot amid the ruins of Gaza.

"I had to make a tailored size for each daughter," Reuters quoted Dawas saying.

- SANDALS IN DEMAND

Soon enough, his neighbours noticed him making the sandals and started asking him to make some for their children.

Using basic carpentry tools, he made them for "a symbolic price," he says.

The sandals have a wooden sole and a strap made of a rubber strip or fabric. But there was a challenge in finding more wood because Palestinians needed it for cooking and fires.

"Everything here in Gaza is difficult to find," Dawas said, rubbing the base of a sandal with one of his young daughters watching by his side.

Making wooden sandals may ease the pressure of the war but life is still fraught with challenges in Gaza, where the Israeli offensive against Hamas has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health ministry.

Nearly 2 million people have been displaced, often repeatedly, Gazan health officials say.

Hamas triggered the war on Oct. 7 when the Palestinian militant group attacked Israel.

A humanitarian crisis has gripped Gaza since then with Palestinians struggling to find food, water and fuel as they move up and down the territory seeking a safe place to shelter.

The United States, Qatar and Egypt have failed to secure a ceasefire through mediation after many attempts.

The border crossing with Egypt has been shut, bringing the flow of aid and basic goods such as shoes to a halt.

"People now are walking around with mismatched shoes," said Momen al-Qarra, a Palestinian cobbler repairing old shoes in a little market in Khan Younis.

"If the situation continues like this for two weeks or a month at the most, without the opening of the border, people will be barefoot."

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Rubble and Grief: Morocco’s High Atlas Marks One Year Since Record Earthquake

The rhythms of normal life have somewhat resumed in some of the province’s larger towns - The AP
The rhythms of normal life have somewhat resumed in some of the province’s larger towns - The AP
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Rubble and Grief: Morocco’s High Atlas Marks One Year Since Record Earthquake

The rhythms of normal life have somewhat resumed in some of the province’s larger towns - The AP
The rhythms of normal life have somewhat resumed in some of the province’s larger towns - The AP

The rescue crews and bystanders are long gone but the remnants of homes still sit in piles off to the side of the jagged roads.

A year after nearly 3,000 people died when a record earthquake shook communities throughout Morocco's High Atlas, it still looks like a bomb just went off in villages like Imi N'tala, where dozens of residents died after a chunk of mountainside cracked off and flattened the majority of buildings.

Broken bricks, bent rods of rebar and pieces of kitchen floors remain but have been swept into neater piles alongside plastic tents where the displaced now live. Some await funds to reconstruct their homes. Others await approval of their blueprints.

The region shaken by the earthquake is full of impoverished agricultural villages like Imi N’tala, accessible only via bumpy, unmaintained roads. Associated Press reporters revisited half a dozen of them last week ahead of the first anniversary.

In some places, residents who say they're awaiting governmental action have begun reconstructing buildings on an ad hoc basis. Elsewhere, people tired of the stuffiness of plastic tents have moved back into their cracked homes or decamped to larger cities, abandoning their old lives.

Streets have been neatly swept in towns like Amizmiz and Moulay Brahim, although cracked buildings and piles of rubble remain, much as they were in the days after the quake.

The rhythms of normal life have somewhat resumed in some of the province’s larger towns, where rebuilding efforts on roads, homes, schools and businesses are underway and some residents have been provided metal container homes. But many of those displaced from the more than 55,000 homes destroyed by the temblor remain vulnerable to summer’s heat and winter’s cold, living in plastic tents, impatient to return.

Mohamed Soumer, a 69-year-old retiree who lost his son in last year's earthquake, is angry because local authorities have forbidden him from rebuilding his home on the same steep mountainside due to safety concerns. He now spends his days with his wife in a plastic tent near his now-rubbled home and fears moving elsewhere and restarting his life in a larger, more expensive area.

“Residents want to stay here because they have land where they grow vegetables to make a living,” he said. “If they go somewhere else and abandon this place, they will not be able to live there.”

The government early on promised households monthly stipends in the aftermath of the earthquake and additional funds for seismically safe reconstruction. It said last week that both had been provided to the majority of eligible families and households.

“Specific solutions are being deployed on the ground for difficult cases,” Morocco's Prime Minister's Office said in a statement.

But on the ground, its disbursal has been uneven, residents say, with many still waiting for funds or reconstruction to commence.

Anger has mounted against local authorities in towns like Amizmiz and villages like Talat N'Yaqoub, where residents have protested against their living conditions. They have criticized the slow pace of reconstruction and demanded more investment in social services and infrastructure, which has long gone neglected in contrast with Morocco's urban centers and coastline.

Officials have said rebuilding will cost 120 billion dirhams ($12 billion) and take about five years. The government has rebuilt some stretches of rural roads, health centers and schools but last week the commission tasked with reconstruction acknowledged the need to speed up some home rebuilding.