https://countercurrents.org/author/dr-marwan-asmar/in Palestine
by Dr Marwan Asmar
16/05/2026
Two sisters from Gaza have won a top international award for the environment. They are 17-year-old Tala and 15-year-old Farah Samer Moussa from Al-Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip and who were the Middle East winners in the “Earth Prize 2026” competition.
The prize, the world’s largest environmental competition for young people from the age of 13 to 19 is awarded by the Earth Foundation, a Geneva-based non-profit organization founded in 2019 to empower young people to develop practical and effective environmental solutions to their surroundings.
The sisters received their accolade for their project, “Build Hope – Palestine.” It involved recycling rubble from the destroyed buildings of Gaza and transforming these chunks of debris into reusable building blocks. This Earth initiative in itself aims to engage young people in the reconstruction efforts of their local communities as reported by Qudspress.
The idea for the project arose after the family home was destroyed during the war through the constant Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip. It was this that prompted the two sisters to find a practical way to contribute to addressing the ongoing devastation.
The project relies on collecting rubble from destroyed buildings, then grinding, sifting, and mixing it with locally available binding materials such as clay, ash, or glass powder, before shaping and drying it to produce molds that can be used for sidewalks, planting beds, and interior partitions.
The sisters plan to expand the project by organizing workshops targeting approximately 100 young men and women to start making use of the rubble and debris. They will also train participants to transfer their experiences to their communities, thus extending the project’s impact to more than 1000 people.
According to official statistics 90 percent of the homes and infrastructure has either been destroyed and or damaged.
“It was the view from our tent window that motivated us to start this project”, Tala said. “The enormous quantities of rubble and the lack of available reconstruction solutions drove us to work on this project, to transform destruction into a starting point for hope,” she added.
For Tala and her sister Farah winning the award sends a clear message that hope can be born from the rubble. Tala pointed out she is very happy at being crowned, along with her sister.
The judging panel noted the two sisters are the first regional winners from Palestine since the inception of the competition and award. The award grants winning teams $12,500 to support the development and implementation of their projects.
Gaza has been reduced to rubble, wreckage and debris over the past two years thanks to Israeli bombing and human slaughter. The UNDP estimates it would take anything from seven to 20 years to clear out the “cement clutter” around the different parts of the Gaza Strip.
The United Nations also estimates there are between 57.5 million to 68 million tons of debris in the Gaza Strip. These piles were created by mass bombs dropped on the 364 square kilometre strip and Israel has dropped more than 100,000 tons of explosives on the area and which is roughly the equivalent of seven nuclear bombs.
Since October 7, 2013, Israel, and with American and European support, has committed genocide in the Gaza Strip, including killing, starvation, destruction, displacement, and arrests of people. It has constantly ignored international appeals and orders from the International Court of Justice to cease its actions.
The genocide has left more than 245,000 Palestinians dead or wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 11,000 missing. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced, and famine has claimed the lives of many, mostly children. Furthermore, the widespread destruction has obliterated most of the Gaza Strip’s cities and towns.