Latest update March 26th, 2026 12:30 AM
Gaza ‘reduced to dust’ as world commits in Doha to eradicate poverty
(AL-JAZEERA) For Gaza resident Yassir Shaheen, nights were the hardest part of living through Israel’s devastating two-year war on the enclave.
“Many nights, we lay awake, our lips dry, our hearts pounding in fear, feeling as though the sky itself was collapsing on us,” he told Al Jazeera.
A view of the heavily damaged Jabalia neighbourhood in northern Gaza [File: Anas Zeyad Fteha/Anadolu Agency]
As world leaders in the Qatari capital Doha pledged this week to “leave no one behind” at the United Nations Second World Summit for Social Development (WSSD), the commitments stood in stark contrast to the reality in Gaza, where access to basic needs remains a luxury.
“Even bread can feel out of reach,” Shaheen, the team lead for the charity Humanity First UK in Gaza, revealed.
While prices have fallen compared with the worst periods of the war, they are still six to 10 times higher, Shaheen said.
On Thursday, Gaza’s Government Media Office said Israel has only allowed 4,453 trucks to enter, barely a quarter of what was supposed to enter daily according to the ceasefire agreement that came into effect on October 10.
Meanwhile, infrastructure in the enclave has been almost completely destroyed, Shaheen lamented, with only rubble remaining “where streets and buildings once stood.”
According to UN estimates, 92 percent of all residential buildings in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed since Israel’s war on the enclave began on October 7, 2023, producing between 55-60 million tonnes of rubble.
“Schools, clinics, shops, homes … everything that allowed life to function has been reduced to dust,” he said
Development ‘impossible’ amid lack of rights
At the WSSD this week, which concluded on Thursday, member states repledged commitments made at the 1995 summit in Copenhagen, including the eradication of poverty, providing “decent” work, social integration, education and healthcare to the world’s most vulnerable populations.
The resulting Doha Political Declaration, adopted at the end of the summit, was a “booster shot for development”, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.
Nevertheless, global declarations such as the WSSD do little in the face of the dire situation in Gaza, according to Rohan Talbot, director of advocacy at the UK-based Medical Aid for Palestinians.
“Despite the ceasefire, the situation in the health sector remains catastrophic, with severe shortages of medical equipment and medicines, and hundreds of healthcare workers killed or still detained,” he told Al Jazeera.
“Development is impossible while Palestinians are denied the most basic rights to safety, movement, and dignity.”
Echoing Talbot, the head of Humanity First UK, Aziz Hafiz, said “no declaration, however eloquent, can substitute for the fundamental right to freedom and security”.
“Development cannot flourish in isolation from justice and peace,” he told Al Jazeera. However, he asserted that does not mean “we wait for peace to act.”
“Every vocational programme, school rehabilitation, or psychosocial initiative becomes an act of resistance to despair,” he said. “While permanent peace remains the ultimate enabler of prosperity, maintaining human dignity in the present moment is equally critical.”
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