Gaza: Picking pebbles for a living

They come by the hundreds every day to sand dunes and rubble sites to sift for pebbles, stones and sand that can be used in making concrete blocks. They lean into trash bins across the Strip, and wade through piles of rubbish scavenging for plastics, metals, and any bits worth reselling. They venture dangerously close to the border fence to unlock metal and steel rods from their demolished home heaps. They are Gaza's recyclers, and in a Strip where unemployment hovers at nearly 50 percent and poverty soars over 80 percent, environmental considerations are far from their minds. They do this work out of necessity. Yousef, 14, leads two of his younger brothers in their daily hunt for concrete materials off the highway between Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah.