A sewing workshop has been operating in ruins to mend worn-out clothes for displaced Palestinians in the war-torn Gaza Strip, as Israel's continuous destruction of the enclave has made new clothes a luxury almost impossible to come by or afford.
The UN humanitarian coordinator for Gaza said in early July that a total of 1.9 million people, around 80 percent of the region's population, were displaced.
However, in a room behind demolished walls in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, a sewing workshop has quietly been set up, with some workers using sewing machines recovered from a bombed-out tailoring workshop to provide mending services.
"I opened the workshop after I was able to recover the sewing machines and some fabric from the old factory. I work to serve all the displaced people of the Gaza Strip, such as people from the al-Mawasi area in Khan Younis and the Nuseirat [refugee camp]," said Abu Samer Shaat, the workshop owner.
The prolonged and intense Israel-Hamas conflict has forced a great number of Gazan families to flee from one place to another. Due to the continuous destruction of their homes and shelters, all they left were the clothes they wear.
Shops, markets and factories were turned into rubble as a result of the Israeli bombing, and the surviving trading sites in Gaza also suffer a shortage of clothes and fabrics due to Israel's ban on entry of goods and materials.
"Our clothes became loose. We had to take them to tailors to mend them as they had become worn out. There are no new clothes in the market. If there are a few, the prices will be very high, and we will not be able to buy them because we do not have any source of income. Our entire lives have come to a halt," said Hoda Al-Maghari, a displaced Palestinian.
Sewing workshop struggles in ruins to mend clothes for displaced Gaza residents
