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Gaza Construction Halts As Siege Tightens

Gaza's construction unions have pleaded with Europe and the United States to pressure Israel to allow in raw materials after Egypt border closure.
Palestinian labourers work at a construction site in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip January 2, 2013. Israel eased its blockade of Gaza on Sunday, allowing a shipment of gravel for private construction into the Palestinian territory for the first time since Hamas seized control in 2007.  REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa (GAZA - Tags: POLITICS BUSINESS CONSTRUCTION) - RTR3C1Q5
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Work stopped and concrete mixing machines grew silent, as workers sat in the shade of the incomplete building that is part of the Mahfoud al-Nahnah school project, west of Gaza City. They had expected during the first week of work stoppage that the transportation of goods through the tunnels dug between the Gaza Strip and Egypt would resume — so that building materials could once again enter the Strip, allowing them to complete construction of the school. But, the second week now neared its end without “cement, aggregate and steel” entering the Strip.

Many of the workers vacated the construction site of this public school, commissioned by the Algerian Movement of Society for Peace and named after its leader. Only a few of them remained in addition to the school’s 45-year-old security guard Ahmad Abu Amra, who told Al-Monitor: “Today marks the end of the second week since construction was halted on the school project. The school was supposed to be completed by next April, but nobody now knows when it will open its doors.”

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