After "Cast Lead," the war in Gaza ending in early 2009- buildings and home were left destroyed throughout the Gaza Strip. I went to visit one of the engineers from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP and he showed me some of the innovative materials that they were trying to make now that half of Gaza was left in crumbles. The rubble removal project lasted over a year after the war, and there are still many buildings that are yet to be completely demolished.
Here's the problem-- the rubble was removed- step 1, but nothing else is happening. There is barely any reconstruction happening becuase no materials are allowed into the Gaza strip to enable actual reconstruction. Lately there has been some wood allowed in- and a very small amount of cement under very controlled means- through the United Nations. Certainly not enough to even start making a dent.
UNDP is left with hundreds of tons of rubble, and ideas sparked in terms of what could be done with the carcasses of destroyed houses. The engineer showed me one of the little ideas they had which was using it as the filler for this cactus plant, below:
But the bigger and better idea is to make these sort of cinder blocks out of rubble. The only problem-- it needs a lot of cement. Enough was allowed in to re-pave one road- it looks great, but it seems to be at a standstill at this point.
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