Taking lead from Gazans, de facto government announces clay home building project

Date: 09 / 05 / 2009  Time:  12:28
Gaza – Ma’an –

Following the lead of dozens of Gazans, the Hamas-run de facto government plans to kick off a state home building project that encourages locals to rebuild out of clay bricks.

The effort is an attempt to overcome the current crisis around construction materials inflicted by the Israeli siege on Gaza (which is enforced by the Egyptian government).

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy in the de facto government Ziad Thatha announced the program Saturday, following extensive media coverage of a dozen new homes built in the southern Gaza Strip from clay and clay bricks.

The government program will mix old and new in programs teaching Gazans how to mix materials on hand, including ground up rubble leftover from the thousands of demolished buildings in the wake of Israel’s war on the area. The program leaders are also taking cues from ancient Islamic-era buildings that used clay centuries ago.

The program has prepared several recipes for different types of construction material, mixing clay, gravel, and sand. Thatha said the ministry took samples of gravel from seven areas in the Gaza Strip in order to modify the brick recipes for each sector. The samples are currently being put though labs at the Islamic University and final recipes will be released in two days.

The government will assist in setting up production factories for clay bricks in several sectors of the Strip. There is also a wider vision to using local resources to build homes in the more traditional Islamic style including the dome, characteristic of buildings from the Islamic-era in the Gaza Strip. Thatha also noted that once the use of clay is mastered, it can be used to manufacture more than bricks and construction materials, but also pottery and ceramics.

The project will start with the building of one three-storey building with each floor at 250 square meters of space for a family to live. According to Thatha, the government hopes NGOs working in Gaza will take up the initiative and use the technology as a model to help the more rapid construction of homes for those whose domiciles were lost to Israeli shells during the war on Gaza.