Skip to main content

Mud, mud, glorious mud. Nothing quite like it for beating the Israeli blockade - Middle East, World - The Independent

Mud, mud, glorious mud. Nothing quite like it for beating the Israeli blockade - Middle East, World - The IndependentMr Al Shaer, 36, first became interested in the multi-millennium-old technique of building mud houses when he visited Bangladesh during a religious trip in the 1990s. "This was what our ancestors did before us," he says. "But I never thought I would be doing it myself." Last year, when his parental home, in a town whose chronic housing shortage is compounded by the relentless demolitions along the border with Egypt during nine years of conflict, became too overcrowded, he realised he needed somewhere else to live. Money was in short supply and cement, which Israel has not allowed into Gaza since Hamas seized full control by force in June 2007, unaffordable. But thanks to the multiplication of smuggling tunnels under the border, mud was abundant. It was also free apart from the £32 a truckload it cost to transport it to his 300 square metres of land on what was, until 2005, the Israeli settlement of Morag. Using a shoe box to mould mud, sand and water bricks strengthened with corn husk straw, leaving them to dry for three days, and making a timber roof frame, allowed him to install his wife, his four daughters and infant son in a new house for around $3,000 (£1,877) compared with the $25,000 for conventional construction. Pausing only for the three weeks of war, when bombing made it too dangerous to make the four- kilometre journey from his home, he completed the job in just two months.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Israeli school segregated Ethiopian students » Ethiopian Review

Israeli school segregated Ethiopian students » Ethiopian Review : "The placement of four Ethiopian girls in a separate class from their peers at a Petah Tikva grade school has sparked accusations of segregation on Tuesday morning following a report in Yediot Aharonot. According to ‘Hamerhav’ principal, Rabbi Yeshiyahu Granvich, complete integration of the girls was impossible. The reason being, said municipal workers, was that the students were not observant enough, nor did their families belong to the national-religious movement that the school was founded upon. Among the differences in the daily school life of the girls, a single teacher was responsible to teach them all of their subjects. Worse yet, the four were allotted separate recess hours and were driven to and from school separately. Such action has been labeled by observers as “apartheid.”"
Post a Comment
Read more

McClatchy Washington Bureau | 01/13/2009 | Poll: American public backs Israel firmly in war with Hamas

McClatchy Washington Bureau | 01/13/2009 | Poll: American public backs Israel firmly in war with Hamas : "WASHINGTON — As Palestinian casualties mount in the Gaza Strip, the American people are squarely behind Israel and overwhelmingly think that using force against Hamas is appropriate, according to a new McClatchy/Ipsos poll. Forty-four percent of Americans support Israel's use of force, while only 18 percent considered Hamas' use of force appropriate. Fifty-seven percent think that Hamas is using excessive force, while only 36 percent said Israel was. Nearly 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in the violence — soldiers and civilians — and at least nine Israeli soldiers and four civilians have died. When it comes to who's to blame for the latest Middle East crisis, Americans blame Hamas hands down: Forty-four percent said Hamas, 14 percent said Israel and 29 percent said they weren't sure. Nine percent said both, and 4 percent said neither."
Post a Comment
Read more