Gazans find money in rubble of destroyed houses
Even university graduates have taken on the arduous work of extracting concrete and iron from the rubble of houses destroyed during last year's war in Gaza's stricken economy.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Every morning, Atta al-Hindi goes to the sites of destroyed houses in the Shajaiya neighborhood in central Gaza, destroyed in the 2014 Israeli war. Hindi extracts whatever building materials he can from the rubble and sells them to small local recycling factories to support his family of four.
The 3 to 4 million tons of scattered rubble have created work for hundreds of unemployed Gazans who extract iron bars and gravel from the rubble. At the end of 2014, the unemployment rate in Gaza reached 43%, the highest in the world, according to a report issued by the World Bank in March 2015.
Hindi sweated as he tried to straighten an iron rod he had recovered. He told Al-Monitor, “My son and I are extracting iron rods and gravel from the rubble of the houses after making an agreement with the house’s owner to buy what we can extract. One ton of extracted iron [140 10-mm diameter rods] costs $300-$350, while a ton of extracted concrete, stones and gravel are only about $40.”
He said that at the end of a normal day, he transports what he extracts by cart to the factories that process building materials and concrete. There, he sells what he collects, making $30 to $40 a day. “I used to work in a stone factory in Gaza, but during the last war, Israeli shells destroyed the plant and left me unemployed like thousands of other workers. Fate decreed that I find work in the rubble of what was destroyed during the war,” Hindi said.
