Chicago – December 23, 2023
Less than a year before a Hamas attack out of Gaza sparked a war, one of the oldest and largest sports complexes in the Palestinian territories got a much-needed overhaul: brand-new basketball, volleyball and tennis courts, a soccer field, a running track and, for the first time, accessible bathrooms. It was a $519,000 upgrade, funded by United States taxpayers.
Now, the roof of the Gaza Sports Club appears to be shredded to ribbons, its AstroTurf field crushed under the weight of massive tanks that can be seen in satellite photos obtained by The Associated Press.
Since early October, at least five U.S.-funded community and youth projects in Gaza appear to have been damaged or destroyed, likely by the U.S.-backed Israeli military. However, both in the past and now, Israeli strikes in Gaza appear to have largely spared major infrastructure projects funded by the U.S. government, which has shared their GPS coordinates and other details with the Israeli military for years.
Israel’s offensive is in response to an Oct. 7 Hamas assault in Israel that killed about 1,200 people and took hundreds hostage. Meanwhile, health officials in Hamas-run Gaza say more than 20,000 Palestinians have been killed, and some 1.9 million have fled their homes.
The United Nations has identified more than 37,000 structures destroyed or damaged in the war so far.
The U.S. has spent more than $7 billion in development and humanitarian aid in the West Bank and Gaza since establishing a U.S. Agency for International Development mission decades ago, including $270 million since President Joe Biden ended a Trump-era halt on new funding. For decades, the U.S. also has sent more than $3 billion a year to support Israel’s military, with a pledge from the Biden administration for more than $14 billion in 2023.
