Reconstruction of Gaza lingering three years after war

Abu al-Noor Awad, an old man in his late sixties, doesn't have any more dreams for the rest of his life except not dying in the iron-made caravan where he has been living since January 2009 after the end of Israel's Operation Cast Lead on the Gaza Strip. "They promised us that this will be temporary!" Awad said, feeling depressed that the reconstruction work of his three-store house which was razed by Israeli army bulldozers during the war did not finish till now despite promises from local Palestinian authorities and international institutions to reconstruct the Gaza Strip. His despair increases and suffering mounts day after day, said the old man, while laying on a broken bed in the caravan, where he and his wife sleep. The rest of his family, nine children, are sleeping in two primitive rooms made out of tin that never protect his children from the heat of the sun or the cold of winter. Awad was outraged by the fact that "all the promises we heard about were not fulfilled," three years after the end of the war." "We only heard about the reconstructing and renovating of the houses partially or completely destroyed in the Israeli airstrikes and tanks shelling," he added. The Operation Cast Lead, which began in late 2008 and lasted for 22 days, had left huge destruction of houses, constructions and infrastructures.