RAFAH, June 1 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - The U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) launched Monday, May 31, a multi-million dollar fundraising campaign to help hundreds of families made homeless by the Israeli army's mass campaign of house demolitions in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah.

UNRWA chief Peter Hansen said close to 16 million dollars were needed to provide temporary and permanent housing for Palestinian families as well as rebuild parts of the town's shattered infrastructure, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"We cannot not go out and build until we have the money and the land, so we are caught in a squeeze," Hansen told reporters here.

Should the U.N. agency secure the sum, partially through increasing aid from Gulf countries, cash donations will be handed out to 760 destitute families, 560 of which will be re-housed by UNRWA.

"Rafah was always a poor place, it is now a devastated place. The situation is untenable," Hansen stressed, describing homeless families finding temporary shelter in UNRWA-run schools where they sleep on the floor.

"It is indeed a hopeless situation when you contemplate losing everything you have in a deliberate armored attack on your own house," he said.

At least 62 Palestinians were killed in Rafah last month as Israel launched a massive incursion into Rafah, the bloodies of its kind in decades.

UNRWA estimated that from 18 May through 24 "a total of 167 buildings  in the Tel Sultan, Brazil and Salam quarters of Rafah were destroyed or rendered uninhabitable. These buildings housed 379 families or 2,066 individuals.

"In total, from 1 May until 24 May, 277 buildings, housing 641 families, or 3,451 individuals have been demolished in Rafah."

Since the start of the Intifada in September 2001, 1,476 buildings have been demolished in Rafah, affecting 14,666 people, said the UNRWA report.

Hansen said Palestinian families are desperate, angry and "some have given up hope."

Part of the anticipated aid will help repair sewage and water networks, telephone and electricity poles and cables.

Hansen said access to drinking water was problematic in Rafah and could potentially pose a serious health hazard.

UNRWA is currently providing safe water in tankers.

Donor Fatigue

Hansen also pointed to donor fatigue and irritation with Israeli destructions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip since the beginning of the Palestinian Intifada nearly four years ago.

"The donors are getting very, very tired of being asked to contribute to appeals and to do things for the refugees," he said.

"They increasingly see it as cementing the occupation and letting Israel get away with all these things without holding it responsible and accountable for it as it is under international humanitarian and international human rights law."

Hansen did not hide his skepticism about Israel ever reimbursing UNRWA for the schools, hospitals and clinics managed by the agency and destroyed by the occupation army in the course of the Intifada.

"We keep a very meticulous list of all these destructions and we send it to the Israelis with a demand to be compensated for. Needless to say we have still to receive the first shekel," he said.

The United Arab Emirates was the first Arab country to translate its solidarity with the Palestinians into action by launching a fund-raising campaign to rebuild 400 homes for the Rafah residents.

U.N. rights experts vehemently condemned Friday, May 28, Israel's "systematic" demolition of Palestinian homes and destruction of water sources and livelihoods in the southern Gaza Strip Rafah refugee camp.

The Israeli offensive drew unprecedented criticism from members of the cabinet of hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Justice Minister Tommy Lapid condemned it as "not humane", making Israel "looks like monsters to the rest of the world".

"I was in the United States last week, and I noticed that we look like monsters to the rest of the world," said Lapid.

The U.N. Security Council passed  a resolution on Wednesday, May 19, with a rare U.S. abstention, condemning Israel for its practices in Rafah.

Amnesty described the Rafah offensive as a part of  "war crimes", while French daily Le Monde called it a "dirty war" launched by occupation forces against the Palestinians.