Qatar on Tuesday launched a project to build 1,000 homes in Gaza to house Palestinian Arabs displaced by last summer’s war between Hamas and Israel, AFP reported.

The Gulf state, which hosts the exiled leadership of Gaza’s Islamist Hamas rulers, was the largest single donor at an October conference in Cairo to raise funds to help rebuild the territory.

“Qatar made a pledge at the donors conference. Today we are putting that into effect, by beginning construction of 1,000 housing units,” the head of the Qatari project, Mohammed al-Emadim, said at a news conference in Gaza City.

He did not specify where in the densely populated coastal enclave the homes would be built.

Qatar pledged $1 billion at the conference, almost a fifth of the total $5.4 billion promised in international aid.

UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian Arab refugees, has estimated that the homes of more than 96,000 Gazans were destroyed or damaged during the conflict. The high level of destruction is due to the fact that Hamas heavily entrenched its terrorist network in the civilian infrastructure of Gaza.

In late January, UNRWA said that it cannot afford to repair Gaza homes damaged in last year’s war with Israel – because donors have failed to live up to their pledges to pay.

Last week, outgoing UN Middle East peace envoy Robert Serry criticized the international community over the failure to deliver aid, saying, “Gaza is more isolated than ever, with many restrictions still in place at Israeli crossings for both goods and people and with the Rafah crossing (with Egypt) practically closed.”

“Only a small percentage of the $5.4 billion pledged at the Cairo reconstruction conference has actually been disbursed. This is, frankly, unacceptable,” he added.