In an attempt to overcome the Israeli restrictions, Emad Al Khaledi, an engineer from Gaza and owner of an idle cementbrick factory, thought about using earth resources two years ago."I thought of finding an alternative to cement when the Israeli blockade tightened," he said. "I tested many natural materials and finally came up with this product."
The product is a solid block, ready for construction. It is a mixture of sand, clay, calcium and water that are compressed together in one manual machine.
"After the war, the idea needed to be implemented on the ground," he proudly said. "We started to produce the bricks after the material was successfully tested."
The materials and the blocks were tested in laboratories of the Islamic University and the Engineers' Syndicate and they proved high quality within the international standards, he said.
The manual machine produces 15,000 blocks each day, he said, adding that he is working on manufacturing an automatic machine which will produce 50,000 blocks every day.
Al Khaledi, an experienced engineer by profession and mud enthusiast by choice, said his initiative progressed in high speed, especially after the war on Gaza, as thousands of people were left homeless and had to live in tents and other makeshift shelters.
"We tried to build a house and the project was a success," said Al Khaledi, referring to al-Athamna's house. "The UNRWA asked us to produce bricks to build houses for displaced people after they saw how successful our work was."
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