Waste Piles in Gaza Turn into Fuel Source for Palestinians
(AWP) - Displaced Palestinian woman Um Mohamed squats in front of her makeshift stove in a camp in the southern Gaza Strip to cook some food while her granddaughter occasionally hands her pieces of cardboard to keep the fire burning.
The woman was displaced from her home after Israeli army tanks entered her area during the war in Gaza which has been ongoing for 30 days.
She says, “We collect cardboard to cook on a griddle and make tea because there is no gas available. Young children need to eat and they do not understand that gas is unavailable. When the little one comes to me and says, ‘Grandma, I want to eat,’ what should I tell him?”
Waste in all its forms has turned into fuel used by Palestinian refugees in Gaza to light stone stoves which they have set up on the roadsides, schoolyards or parks where they have been displaced to, in order to cook food, bake bread or make tea.
Um Mohamed says, “We collect cardboard from the trash so we can light a fire to prepare food. We made some iron nets to cook and bake on the fire. We fill water bottles in turns.”
The media office in Gaza estimates the number of displaced persons in the region to be more than 1.4 million, with half of them in shelters while the others reside with friends, relatives, or in public facilities.