Gaza City, April 20: Crushed rubble and rocks, recycled metal, tents, containers and “mud houses” make up blockaded Gaza’s modest answer to its housing crisis more than a year after the devastating Israeli war.
“We are at zero. There are no projects, no major residential projects,” was the grim assessment of the response to Gaza’s post-war reconstruction needs from Mahmud Abed, treasurer of the Palestinian contractors’ union.
Over coffee and cigarettes at the union’s modern glass and metal building in Gaza City financed by Germany and opened back in 2005, a group of contractors reminisced over the impoverished territory’s better days.
“Now foreign donors don’t want to get involved in any project with smuggled concrete” brought in — along with a multitude of other goods — through a network of tunnels between Gaza and Egypt, explained Abed.
“In any case, the smuggled concrete is not reinforced, it’s not up to construction standards,” he said. “Only private homes are being rebuilt with such materials.”
International donors have been forced to abandon the construction sector and efforts to ease the housing crisis, turning instead to agriculture and livestock.
Saadi Salama, a board member of the union, harks back to the days when Gazan contractors had deals lined up worth more 100 million dollars, including much-needed residential projects in Khan Yunis and Rafah.
“Before 2007, each contractor had more than 100 employees. Now the labourers and civil engineers are jobless,” he said. “Out of 220 contractors in Gaza, less than 50 are active today.”
Salama bemoaned the private sector’s huge losses since Israel imposed a strict blockade of Gaza in June 2007.
“Private contractors now have compensation claims against UNRWA that are going to international arbitration,” he said, referring to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
Adnan Abu Hasna, a UNRWA spokesman, was sympathetic.
“It’s obvious the contractors have lost money, we’ve also lost. Negotiations are taking place. Contractors have really been destroyed, not only those working with UNRWA,” he said.
Amid the improvised methods to cope with life under embargo, stone crushing has become a major activity, along with the recycling of rubble and twisted metal girders from buildings destroyed in Israel’s assault.
After an arduous day of digging for sizeable rocks and scavenging through the rubble, Gazans load buckets onto donkey carts and unload at crusher factories for a daily wage of around seven dollars.
“We have gone back 50 years. Now they are using clay materials for homes that should only be used for agriculture. We refuse to get involved with UNRWA in their mud hut project,” said another private contractor, Hisham Skaik.
UNRWA’s Abu Hasna defended the launch of its project to build 120 such units around Gaza as “a temporary solution to a humanitarian situation” for families reduced to living in tents or converted containers.
The bungalow-style homes fitted with bathroom, kitchen and sleeping areas are built with traditional designs but up-to-date methods, eco-friendly and resistant to the elements, he insisted.
“And they use only two-to-three percent of the cement needed to build a conventional home,” said Abu Hasna, giving assurances on safety standards.
The December 2008-January 2009 war launched by Israel damaged or destroyed 60,000 Gazan homes, with more than 300,000 people affected, said the UNRWA official.
Amid a dearth of apartments available for rent, thousands of Gazan families have since had to rely on the “extended family” for makeshift accommodation with relatives, giving rise to social problems due to overcrowding.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon’s visit to the Gaza Strip last month gave rise to a glimmer of hope.
He inaugurated projects to build 150 homes, a flour mill and a sewage treatment plant, which he said had been approved by Israel. However, the projects were no more than “a drop in the bucket,” Ban acknowledged.
Israel has agreed to permit concrete deliveries to the territory for the UN mini-projects and last week started to allow in limited truckloads of wood and aluminium for construction.
“Israel will not allow the reconstruction of Gaza, which we regard as a terrorist entity because it is controlled by Hamas” and an Israeli soldier is still held by Palestinian militants, an Israeli military official has said.
Abu Hasna said UNRWA would keep up its efforts to amend Israel’s policy.
“We have guaranteed the Israelis that any raw materials imported into Gaza will go to the right people, that there will be total transparency, nothing hidden from them,” he said.
—Agencies