נמשך מבצע איסוף התרומות למשפחות ברפיח, אשר בתיהן נהרסים בפעולת הצבא הישראלי

In the last few months I handed over to Khalil Shahin, our comrade from Rafah, three sums:

• End of 2003 – right after the appeal at the homepage – 20,000 NIS that were distributed to 30 families, numbering 245 people.
• February 2004 – 40,000 NIS distributed to 54 families numbering 473 people.
• Beginning of last week 09/05/04 – right before the IDF invasion – 40,000 NIS that will be distributed in the forthcoming weeks.

The money is distributed by a team of volunteers headed by Khalil. Among the members are people from the Rafah committee of families whose homes were demolished and social workers. Khalil himself works in the Palestinian Human Rights Centre in Gaza and distributes the money voluntarily – it is not a part of his job.

After each distribution he sends a detailed report with the names of the families who got the donation, how many people in each family and how much was donated. The last two donations were given in Rafah, but this one will be also given in Khan Younes.

In the beginning of the year we got a moving thank you letter from the families.

There is not much to be said about Rafah as the situation changes every minute. However, here are some statistics:

In 2003 the IDF demolished 847 houses totally and 809 houses partially – data for the Gaza strip. At least 2024 families (approx. 16,500 people) remain homeless.

Most of these demolitions occur in Rafah: 486 houses were demolished totally and 370 partially.

(in the West Bank at least 152 houses, incl. 60 houses in Eastern Jerusalem).

A press release by UNRWA states that 131 houses were totally demolished, or left in a condition that they can’t be repaired, only in the last month.
These are PCHR data.

Since the beginning of the Intifada, according to UNRWA, more than 17,000 Palestinians lost their homes in the Gaza strip alone. These numbers do not include the last few days – at least tens of houses were demolished and hundreds of people are homeless.

Anat.