Qatar launched a project to build 1,000 homes in the Gaza Strip as part of a $1 billion aid pledge to house Palestinians displaced by last summer's war on Gaza by Israel. 

Mohammad al-Amadi, head of the Qatari Committee to Rebuild Gaza, said that Israel had allowed four truckloads of cement into the Gaza Strip so that the planned construction of the dwellings could begin.

"Today we are starting the $1 billion (effort)," Amadi told reporters as he stood in the rubble of a hospital destroyed during the 50-day Gaza war.

Palestinian and United Nations officials said 130,000 houses had either been demolished or damaged by Israeli air strikes and shelling, in the densely populated coastal territory.

"We want more countries to come and build Gaza. Gaza suffered from previous wars," Amadi said.

Israel has tightly limited the flow of concrete, cement, iron bars and other materials into Gaza.

Video - AFP | Photo Credit - Google Images