San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Ruins of fighting recycled for new projects in Gaza
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — The Gaza Strip has few jobs, little electricity and almost no natural resources. But after four bruising wars with Israel in just over a decade, it has lots of rubble.
Local businesses are now finding ways to cash in on the chunks of smashed concrete, bricks and debris left behind by years of conflict. In a territory suffering from a chronic shortage of construction materials, a bustling recycling industry has sprouted up, providing income to a lucky few but raising concerns that the refurbished rubble is substandard and unsafe.
“It’s a lucrative business,” said Naji Sarhan, deputy housing minister in the territory’s Hamas-led government. The challenge, he said, is regulating the use of recycled rubble in construction.
“We are trying to control and correct the misuse of these materials,” he said.
Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers have gone to war four times since the Islamic militant group, which opposes Israel’s existence, seized control of the territory in 2007. The most recent fighting was in May. Israeli air strikes have damaged or leveled tens of thousands of buildings in the fighting.
The United Nations Development Program says it worked with the local private sector to remove some 2.5 million metric tons of rubble left behind from wars in 2009, 2012 and 2014. Gaza’s Housing Ministry says the 11-day war in May left an additional 270,000 tons.
Israel and Egypt have
Palestinian workers make concrete bricks at a factory near Gaza City this month from the rubble of buildings damaged in Israeli air strikes during the war with Gaza’s Hamas rulers in May.
maintained a crippling blockade on Gaza for the past 15 years, restricting the entry of badly needed construction materials. Israel says such restrictions are needed to prevent Hamas from diverting goods like concrete and steel for military use. Since 2014, it has allowed some imports under the supervision of the United Nations. But thousands of homes need to be
repaired or rebuilt, and shortages are rampant.
The UNDP has put tight restrictions on its recycling effort. It says that renewed rubble is not safe enough for use in building homes and buildings. Instead, it allows it to be used only for road projects.
“We do not recommend any of the rubble to be used for any reconstruction as such,
because it is not a good quality material for reconstruction,” said Yvonne Helle, a UNDP spokeswoman.
U.N. road projects have provided a partial solution for the rubble problem, but most of Gaza’s debris continues to make its way into the desperate private sector.