Responsabilidad social

Broadly, the Gaza strip is classified into two groups of areas in term of building layouts; ‘planned’ areas and ‘unplanned’ areas. Planned areas are characterized by the following (MOLG, 2000); they include residential areas, green areas and commercial areas. The construction in the residential areas is subject to construction laws which stipulate that the plot of land to be constructed should be of an area at least 250 m and the construction area (building area) should not be more than 60% of the area of that plot. The building should have front, back and side free spaces at least 3 m, 2 m and 2 m, respectively, from the boundaries of the land plot. Interior streets in planned areas have a width of either 8 m or 12 m and these streets are linked by major roads that have a width of either 20 m or 30 m. The urban centres in the Gaza Strip have this type of building layout. Figure 4.1 below shows aerial photo of an urban centre in Gaza city.

Figure 4. 1 Aerial photo of an urban centre in the Gaza City

In the other hand, unplanned areas are characterized by the following; lack to public spaces, there are very constricted spaces or, in most cases, no available spaces between the sides of

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housing units (housing units’ boundaries are adjacent to each other), and the streets or alleys in these areas are often very narrow (2 – 4 m). The majority of the eight refugee camps in the Gaza Strip have this type of layout and this was confirmed by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in its description of the living circumstances of the refugee camps in the Gaza Strip (UNRWA, 2010a). Figure 4.2 shows an aerial photo of El - Shati’ camp in the Gaza Strip.

Figure 4. 2 An aerial photo of El-Shati' camp.

In this study, only the applicability of simplified sewerage in the camps will be considered as a study done by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) (2002) showed that the majority of households in urban centres in the Gaza strip are connected to a well-functioning sewerage systems, while the refugee camps have no access to any sewerage system with exception to Jabalyia refugee camp.

The Gaza Strip refugee camps profile

The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) (2009) defines the refugee camp as “any locality referred to as a refugee camp and administrated by UNRWA’. The overcrowding of housing units in these camps (i.e. as shown in Figure 4.2) and the narrow alleys or streets within them resulted from the very high population densities in these camps (see Table 4.1), the high growth rate of the population and that these camps are not allowed to expand from their original boundaries. In addition, the absence of laws - due to the bad political situations

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in the Gaza Strip - encouraged the camps’ residents to expand their house at the expense of public streets and public yards and thus resulted in the creation of such narrow alleys within the camps (Marx, 1992; Marshy, 1999; Rueff and Viaro, 2009). Marshy (1999) also stated that the refugee camps in the Gaza Strip are characterized as ‘urban slum areas’ as they have similar socio-economic and physical properties of the urban slum areas in other developing countries.

Table 4. 1: The population density of each camp in the Gaza Strip

Camp Area Ë<= Total Population Population density

(ÌÍ/ÎÏ) El-Shati’ 0.52 80000 1593 Bureij 0.528 31000 587 Deir el Balah 0.16 20000 1250 Maghazi 0.60 24000 400 Nuseriat 1 60000 600 Jabalyia 1.40 108000 771 Khan Younis 0.550 68000 1239 Rafah 1.50 99000 660

Source: UNRWA, 2010b and Shashaa, 1999

The housing units in the camps of the Gaza Strip are officially characterized by their ‘temporary statues’, a situation that have lasted for the past 60 years (Rueff and Viaro, 2009). These housing units vary from single-storey units which are roofed by asbestos materials to multi-storey housing units, with housing units of three storeys are the most common. Multi- family households are very common in the camps (i.e. brothers and their families share one house), the consequence of which crowding within the household is one of the main features of the camps (Marshy, 1999; Rueff and Viaro, 2009). The sizes of the households are relatively high in the eight camps; The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) (2009) provides the average size of household in each camp in the Gaza Strip as shown in Table 4.2.

The Refugee camps, like the rest of the Gaza Strip, have suffered from bad economical situations since the Israeli military started its operations in the Gaza Strip in 2001. The bad economic situations have severely increased to reach high levels due to the continuous imposed siege on the Gaza Strip since 2006. Consequently, unemployment levels in the refugee camps already reached unprecedented high levels with more than 45% of the labour

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force are out of work. This has resulted in severe increase in the poverty levels in the refugee camps; currently 30 % of the households in the refugee camps lives below the poverty line (less than 2.70 $ per person per day) and 41 % of the households lives in extreme poverty (less than 1.375$ per person per day) (UNDP, 2010). Thus, the refugee camps in the Gaza Strip are considered as low income, high population density areas.

A study on the living conditions of the refugee camps done by Rueff and Viaro (2009) showed that different obstacles hinder infrastructure development programmes, including sanitation projects, to be carried out in these camps, among these obstacles are; the lack to financial support, incapacity or unwillingness of the municipalities to incorporate refugee camps in their master plans due to the overcrowded buildings and the narrowness of the street which, for example, prevents the entry or movement of large machineries (i.e. bulldozers) to these areas. Rueff and Viaro (2009) also stated that the success of such programmes not only depends upon overcoming the obstacles shown above but also on the capacity of involving the refugee communities in projects planning and implementation.

Table 4. 2: Average size of household in the different camps

Camp Average size of household

EL Shati’ 6.70 Bureij 6.50 Deir el Balah 6.70 Maghazi 6.30 Jabalyia 6.80 Khan Younis 6.70 Rafah 6.60 Source: PCBS, 2009