The Times of London has this reprint of a 1951 article on its website today (excerpt below). How is it that so little progress has been made in 57 years?

Homeless In Gaza

From a Correspondent lately in Gaza

To most people the name of Gaza brings a picture of blind Samson pulling down the pillars of the house upon the Philistines and himself. Today the reputed tomb of Samson is inhabited by a family of Arab refugees. They form part of the horde of some 200,000 people from Palestine who poured into the Gaza Strip  in 1948, during the troubles between the Arabs and Jews which broke out after the partition plan was announced. Many moved out under orders from their leaders, although implored to stay by Jews with whom they had been on friendly terms for years. Others, particularly the townspeople of Jaffa, were driven to flight by the brutality of the Irgun terrorists, and a massacre of innocent villagers at Dir Yassin, magnified by rumour, struck panic into the hearts of thousands. The refugees in the north gravitated to the Lebanon and Syria, those to the east to Judea, the Jordan valley, and Transjordan, while those in the south turned towards Gaza, which was held by the Egyptians and is now under military government. The " Strip," only 25 miles long and five miles wide, runs from Gaza to the Sinai frontier at Rafah. Last August the total number of Arab refugees receiving rations from the United Nations was 860,000, and because of the high birth-rate this number is steadily increasing. Roughly half of these are in the Kingdom of Jordan, a quarter in the Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, and a quarter in Gaza . . . .

 .  . .The only exit from the Gaza Strip, which is hemmed in by Israel, is to Egypt, and there the refugees are not welcome. They are virtually imprisoned in the area, their only means of escape being a dangerous moonlight flit through Jewish territory. Meanwhile, 70,000 of them have crammed themselves into Gaza town, more than doubling its inhabitants. Over- crowded rooms are let at extortionate rents and those unable to afford them have taken to tents, makeshift shelters, even holes in the ground. On every bit of spare ground pitiable shacks can be seen, made of canvas, sacking, boughs of trees, and bits of tin. Outside the town huge scattered camps have grown up round the villages and two former British Army camps. In Breij about 8,000 refugees are in tents or makeshifts and 6,000 in buildings of varying degrees of soundness. Many of these are large barracks with fairly sound walls and roofs but lacking doors and windows. Inside each is a honeycomb of 30 or 40 cubicles, divided by mud walls or partitions of blankets. In each cell live one, two, or three families, the lucky ones being those with a window. In the larders and kitchens of these ex-Army canteens the refugees huddle among the sinks and stoves, and in the bath-houses they lie down to sleep among the showers or in the boiler rooms. Those under canvas have fared no better, for many tents which were in reasonable shape when issued quickly rotted in the rain and gales of winter, and total replacement was im- possible. The tents, too, are over- crowded, and even the small ones are often divided by a canvas partition separating two families. Privacy, even by Arab standards, is impossible in such con- ditions. In addition, there is the corrosion of idleness and despair, eating into moral fibre and breeding bitterness and discontent . . . .

There are no possibilities of agricultural or industrial development, and all the Clapp Commission could sug-gest was some road works and tree planting to prevent the encroachment of the sand. The United Nations rations keep the recipients above starvation level, and there are extras for those who can afford them; but resources are running out, and hunger makes the temptation to cheat and steal overwhelming. A few hundred are employed on weaving and tailoring and 1,500 on relief work, but many thousands of able-bodied men have no occupation whatever. Bodies as well as hearts grow sick with hope deferred, and though there has been no major epidemic there is a high incidence of tuberculosis and respiratory diseases and inadequate means of treating them . . .

The effect of such conditions among the children is tragic. In the schools the teachers, mostly very young, are doing a fine job against great handicaps; but only about a quarter of the children of school age go to school, the rest run wild, and many cannot attend because of lack of clothes . . .  

Colonel Howard Kennedy concluded his report to the United Nations Political Committee on November 1 with the words: As Director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency I feel it my duty to bring these matters to the attention of the United Nations, because explosive forces are being generated which should be dealt with before the point of detonation is reached . . . the United Nations is on trial in its handling of the Palestine situation, and wise and sympathetic handling of the current refugee problem is imperative if the situation is not to experience further deterioration. Grave difficulties and dangers elsewhere should not blind us to this great human tragedy of the Middle East. The Clapp Commission recognized that, though the measures it recommended to reduce the refugee problem would not of themselves bring peace, yet "if the refugees be left forgotten and desolate in their misery, peace will recede yet farther from these distracted lands."