It’s been exactly four months since Israel’s savage onslaught on the Gaza Strip came to an end, but the two year blockade that preceded the assault remains firmly in place, leaving the people of Gaza with no way to rebuild their shattered lives.
Immediately after the indiscriminate campaign of killing and wanton destruction was halted, the representatives of the Western and Arab worlds, who had remained silent or complicit in the preceding three weeks, gathered in Sharm al-Sheikh to pledge billions of dollars in aid for Gaza’s reconstruction. I found the whole farce frankly offensive-not only had the world sat by idly as the people of Gaza were blockaded and banned from fuel and food for over two years, enduring malnutrition and illness, barred from escaping the narrow strip while enduring Israel’s low-level warfare, but I was prepared to bet an arm the money would never make it through.
I still have my arm.
Four months on and tens of thousands of Palestinian families remain homeless, living in tents. The list of products banned from entering Gaza has not decreased (except maybe for pasta, after John Kerry couldn’t get a real explanation from the Israeli authorities as to why that food staple was prohibited). Compounding matters is the fact that this list isn’t known to anybody but Israeli defense personnel. Only after Palestinian traders have bought their goods from Israeli counterparts are they notified whether they may import the products.
Nobody really bothers importing cement though. Despite it being one of the most scarce and needed materials in the Strip, both Israel and Egypt have barred it from entering since the summer of 2007. 
Fed up with waiting, some local Gazans have improvised and are building homes out of mud. Clay, sand and straw are readily available (or, Israel hasn’t gotten around to destroying them), and after being mixed with water they are poured into brick moulds then left to dry in the sun for three days (Israel hasn’t figured out how to block the sun from Gaza either, although they tried with the white phosphorous).
While some in Gaza may lament the way so many aspects of life have been set backwards, I really believe steps like this are key to breaking free of one of the ugliest developments in modern history-the international siege and boycott of an occupied people for their refusal to bow to their occupiers. Few in Gaza have actually built mud brick homes, but I do hope it catches on. The cost is a fraction of that of a cement built home, the homes are warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer and, most importantly, will help put a roof over the heads of tens of thousands of homeless Palestinians.
This isn’t the only way people are improvising in Gaza. Already mud-brick ovens are almost as popular as gas stoves because of severe Israeli limits on cooking gas, and after all government institutions and buildings were destroyed by Israeli airstrikes, the Hamas government is moving towards moving all its civil records and dealings online under its ‘e-government’ plan.
But it shouldn’t be like this. It is a disgusting world we live in when a refugee population, dispossessed and brutalized for 60 years, is blockaded, besieged, boycotted, malnourished, assaulted and not even allowed to rebuild. No matter your opinion of the ruling party in Gaza, anybody with an ounce of basic human decency should decry the extreme suffering of the population there and the complicity of the world in perpetrating this intolerable situation.
Related posts:
- Gaza burning
- Free Gaza Boats to break Siege
- Gaza Blackout Update
- Gaza: Recovering, but not rebuilding
- Gaza: five days and sixty years of steadfastness
You just jinxed your arm. Good job.
Posted by SanaKF | May 23, 2009, 10:21 pmI'm surprised this hasn't caught on sooner. Mud-bricks have been used for millenia in the Mideast and I have seen pictures of six-story apartment buildings in Yemen built of mud-bricks. In many ways they are superior to concrete and mud-brick houses can last for centuries. Wind catchers can be used to provide a kind of natural, free air-conditioning similar to a termite mound. And they are "cheap as dirt." The only drawbacks are they are vulnerable to earthquakes so I don't know how well they'd stand up to Israeli bombing in the area, an unfortunate but necessary consideration, and they can be a bit dusty, but that can be solved with a coat of lime plaster on the inside, assuming it's available. I wonder how long it will be before Avigdor Lieberman demands the Palestinians make "bricks without straw." ” target=”_blank”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bricks_without_straw
Posted by Sean2009 | May 25, 2009, 12:29 amI'm surprised this hasn't caught on sooner. Mud-bricks have been used for millenia in the Mideast and I have seen pictures of six-story apartment buildings in Yemen built of mud-bricks. In many ways they are superior to concrete and mud-brick houses can last for centuries. Wind catchers can be used to provide a kind of natural, free air-conditioning similar to a termite mound. And they are "cheap as dirt." The only drawbacks are they are vulnerable to earthquakes so I don't know how well they'd stand up to Israeli bombing in the area, an unfortunate but necessary consideration, and they can be a bit dusty, but that can be solved with a coat of lime plaster on the inside, assuming it's available. I wonder how long it will be before Avigdor Lieberman demands the Palestinians make "bricks without straw." ” target=”_blank”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bricks_without_straw
Posted by Sean2009 | May 25, 2009, 12:29 am