What is the cause of discontinuous synthesis of $DNA$ on one of the parental strands of $DNA$? What happens to these short stretches of synthesised $DNA$?

(N/A) The $DNA$-dependent $DNA$ polymerases catalyze polymerization only in one direction,that is $5' \rightarrow 3'$. This creates additional complications at the replicating fork. Consequently,on the leading strand (the template with polarity $3' \rightarrow 5'$),the replication is continuous,while on the lagging strand (the template with polarity $5' \rightarrow 3'$),it is discontinuous. The discontinuously synthesized fragments,known as Okazaki fragments,are later joined by the enzyme $DNA$ ligase.