Blockage and bicycle

The municipality of Gaza is one of the largest in the Gaza Strip. This town took a new step to address the eight-year-long Israeli siege that greatly affected the work of all service sectors. The municipality’s civil servants found a solution to overcome the lack of municipals cars: bicycles.

The project welcomed by Gazans and environmental institutions. First, transportation has been an ongoing problem for years, prompting engineers to consider alternatives. Those presented the idea to provide a bicycle for each of the fifty inspectors at the town hall as an interim solution. This project was approved and implemented in September 2014 by local authority.

Each bicycle has a unique serial number and bears the Gaza municipality’s logo. They were all painted orange to distinguish them from other bicycles in the city. 

Now, citizens are happy to see the inspectors make their rounds in their neighborhoods. They please with the continuous attention by the inspectors in ensuring the garbage is cleaned up in the streets. At present, fifty inspectors can supervise dozens of workers who collect waste from Gaza City, which produces 600 to 700 tons of solid waste per day.

However, money wasn’t only brake of project. Culture played an important role. For town hall, marketing campaign was the main method for both communicating with theirs citizens to reinforce it leadership, and for supporters’ acquisition. It pointed out that many rick countries use bicycles for such tasks. Netherlands is one of this. Gazans often see those who ride bicycles as poor.

We must remember all twenty-three municipalities in the Gaza Strip are suffering the repercussions of the siege, ongoing since Hamas won the municipal elections in December 2006. The movement’s victory was rejected by Israel, which warned the municipalities against dealing with it.