“Another Nakba”: Recovery Process Will Likely Take Generations in Gaza After Two Years or Israeli Genocide, Says UN’s Rajagopal

Gaza (QNN)- Balakrishnan Rajagopal, the UN special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, said Israel’s destruction of homes in Gaza has been a central component of Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in the territory.

Rajagopal, who has used the term “domicide” to describe the decimation of homes across the Strip, told Al Jazeera that Israel’s goal has been to render it uninhabitable.

“Ninety-two percent of homes have been destroyed,” he said. “Even as people are streaming back to northern Gaza – which is actually destroyed far more than southern Gaza – all they’re finding is rubble.”

“So the immediate question is, where can they live? Is the territory inhabitable? And the answer plainly is that it is not, and that is exactly the goal of Israel – to destroy everything,” said Rajagopal.

He added that tents and caravans must be allowed into Gaza immediately to provide shelter for displaced Palestinians, hundreds of thousands of whom have been forced out of their homes in Israel’s two-year assault.

Rajagopal stressed that Palestinians in Gaza will be forced to cope with the lasting psychological effects of seeing their homes and entire communities destroyed across the enclave.

“Home is far more than four walls and a roof. Home is basically a repository of peoples’ hopes and aspirations and dreams and particularly, memories … Those are the things that make people into humans ultimately,” he said.

“What happens when homes are destroyed on a massive scale and an entire community is forced to flee or scatter to the wind, is that it destroys the possibility of the members of the community becoming human again.”

“The psychological impacts and trauma are profound, and that’s what we are seeing right now as people are returning to northern Gaza.”

He added that the recovery process will likely take generations. “It’s like another Nakba,” said Rajagopal, referring to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine when Israel was created in 1948, which still affects Palestinians today.

“What has happened in the last two years is going to be something similar.”