Oxfam lies about "blockade" as more enterprising Gazans building solid, beautiful homes without concrete

Look ma! No concrete!

Last week's press release from Oxfam was typical:

Rebuilding the Gaza Strip after last summer's war with Israel will take at least a century at the current rate of progress, Oxfam warned on Thursday.

Israel restricts the flow of steel and concrete into the Palestinian territory because Hamas, the radical Islamist movement, has diverted material of this kind to build tunnels and bunkers.

Only 1,677 lorries carrying construction material were allowed to enter Gaza between November and January. The territory needs about 800,000 lorry-loads to repair the physical damage inflicted during the 50-day war between Hamas and Israel last year. At the current rate, this would take about 119 years.

Oxfam urged Israel to allow the unrestricted inflow of building material.

"Only an end to the blockade of Gaza will ensure that people can rebuild their lives. Families have been living in homes without roofs, walls or windows for the past six months,” said Catherine Essoyan, Oxfam's Regional Director. “Many have just six hours of electricity a day and are without running water.”

That last sentence shows that we need to be skeptical about the rest. The "blockade" is not limiting fuel or electricity to Gaza; it is the ability of Gazans to pay for fuel and the infrastructure. Since Oxfam lies about that, their "119 years" figure is probably just as inaccurate.

And indeed it is. In January alone, 15,000 tons of construction material entered Gaza, and assuming a high 8 tons per truck that's about 1900 trucks in one month, a number that is increasing steadily.

Oxfam claims that only 579 trucks of construction materials entered Gaza in all of January. Yet COGAT says that they sent in 140 trucks of construction material on January 27, 243 on January 28 and 173 on January 29 - about the same number in three days that Oxfam claims Israel allowed in an entire month.

Oxfam is also not mentioning how Hamas itself is diverting building materials to build tunnels today - something they are bragging about to the BBC. Why wouldn't a "human rights" organization complain about Hamas' diversion of these construction materials from Gazan homes?

But while UNRWA is highlighting the Gazans who are homeless and enthusiastically pushing narratives of dead children that they can blame on Israel, some real Gazans are managing to build very nice homes even with the restrictions on building materials.

I had already mentioned beautiful homes (under a 2010 UNRWA program that seems to have been abandoned!) built with limestone and sand.

Now another enterprising Gazan is building what appears to be sturdy homes - out of sandbags and plaster.



I am not seeing a single NGO raising money to help Gazans build homes with materials that are abundant in Gaza.

There are limitations on these homes; they cannot be more than one story high. But no one is spearheading any initiative to import wood into Gaza, from which three story homes can be easily built, and on which there are no Israeli restrictions.

And you will be hard pressed to find an NGO that condemns Hamas for building terror tunnels using materials that could be building new apartment buildings in Gaza City.

The opportunities are there to build thousands of homes today. In six months, not a single NGO has stepped up to help push a solution that some admirable Gazans are doing on their own. Instead they are bleating about "blockade" as if Israel is capriciously punishing Gazans for no reason.

NGOs like Oxfam care less about human lives than they do about demonizing Israel.