With primitive tools and solid will... Gazans face mountains of rubble in a popular 'recycling epic'

Amidst the ruins of the destroyed Al-Karama neighborhood, citizen Ahmed Mansour (45 years old) struggles to remove the rubble of his home with his bare hands, in a scene that summarizes the reality of thousands of families who have been deprived of housing and overcrowded camps. Mansour is forced to demolish the remaining walls of his dilapidated house himself, in preparation for setting up a tent to shelter him and his family on the land where he grew up, considering that returning to the rubble is a declaration of attachment to the place and a rejection of displacement.

Areas in the northern Gaza Strip, such as Sheikh Radwan, Al-Tawam, and Al-Karama, are turning into popular workshops that do not cease under the scorching sun and thick dust. There, citizens do not wait for international decisions or official reconstruction plans, but rather begin to shape their new lives with plastic jars and manual iron cutters, transforming 'death cement' into the first building blocks of their daily steadfastness.

The field scene is bustling with the movement of young people who lift heavy bricks as if they are restoring fragments of their memories, while manual hammers strike concrete blocks with a monotonous rhythm that represents the true sound of resistance. These men turn their arms into human cranes, and their fingers, bruised by rough edges, into precise engineering tools that extract hope from the heart of pain.

Statistical data indicate an unprecedented urban catastrophe, as the amount of rubble resulting from the war reached about 57.5 million tons, according to a report by the United Nations Development Program issued in December 2025. This huge figure reflects the destruction or damage of nearly 80% of the sector's buildings, which has turned entire neighborhoods into accumulated layers of fragmented concrete that block streets and suffocate life.

The increase in the volume of debris was terrifying, as the quantity jumped by more than 133% within a few months, after it was estimated at 22.9 million tons at the beginning of 2024. These figures reflect the accelerating pace of systematic destruction practiced by the occupation, which puts Gaza in front of one of the most complex construction waste management crises in modern history.

UN analyses confirm that the current volume of rubble exceeds what all Israeli wars on Gaza since 2008 combined have left behind, which puts the residents before a challenge that exceeds traditional capabilities. With the continued prevention of heavy equipment entry, Gazans find themselves forced to deal with mixed and complex materials that require advanced separation techniques that are not currently available.

In light of this reality, local initiatives have emerged, such as the 'Rawafed' team founded by Basem Al-Madhoun, who began by trying to clean his own home before the idea turned into a collective effort. The team aims to help residents clear the debris of their homes to start life anew, relying on primitive tools and simple bulldozers that do not meet the scale of the catastrophe.

Al-Madhoun and his team face significant obstacles posed by the occupation, which prevents the entry of advanced machinery for crushing stones or recycling iron. Israeli forces deliberately bombed available equipment during military operations to obstruct any attempt at self-sufficiency, and to keep the reconstruction file hostage to political decision and military control.

Near the demolition sites, recycled rubble traders such as 'Abu Nael' are active, working to extract twisted iron rods and straighten them manually to sell them at low prices. Abu Nael says that they are looking for their livelihood amidst death, and are trying to provide alternatives for construction in light of the cement shortage and factory closures, so that citizens may find a wall to lean on instead of a tent.

The bitter economic reality has even affected the rubble trade, as the price of a used brick has risen from one shekel before the war to four shekels currently due to the scarcity of materials and the costs of extracting them manually. Despite this increase, many displaced people find themselves unable to pay the price, which exacerbates the suffering of living in the open or under worn-out tent fabrics.

The cruelty in Gaza has reached the point of using used and cleaned stones from the rubble to build graves and prepare them for martyrs, in the absence of new construction materials. Here, the necessity of survival mixes with the pain of farewell, where the stone extracted from a destroyed house is the same material that covers the body of the homeowner who ascended in the bombing.

The rubble removal operations in Gaza are not just a technical procedure to clear the way, but rather a small sovereign act practiced by bare hands in the face of international and regional decisions that try to keep the place suspended. Every stone cleaned of dust is a promise of a future wall, and every iron rod straightened is a new nerve that strengthens the torn land by missiles.

The popular epic continues in Gaza to tell the world that when people are deprived of basic building materials, they build their reconstruction with what is available from yesterday's debris. This scene, which may seem primitive, represents the counter-narrative of the Palestinian idea of displacement, where Gazans insist that the house be born from the debris, and the city be reborn, even if after a while.

Between scissors that cut iron and a jar that transports gravel, the features of a legendary steadfastness are formed daily, transcending the language of cold numbers and statistics. It is a battle of will waged by the Palestinian human against attempts to erase his urban existence, confirming that the roots of survival in this land are deeper than the machines of destruction or the policies of siege can reach.

We are the owners of the house, working from dawn to dusk to prepare the land and set up our tents over our rubble, and we will remain roots that cannot be uprooted no matter how much they persist in destruction.