There is constant movement in front of Abdallah Aljazzar’s tent. Dozens of neighbours, displaced like him in the Al Mawasi area in the south of the Gaza Strip, parade from early in the morning to charge their mobile phones for free at one of the sockets that this 24-year-old and his family have set up on a simple wooden table near the entrance. The videos and photographs are reminiscent of a small makeshift telephone booth. “In one day I can charge 70 phones,” this young man, who has a degree in English Literature from Al Azhar University, now a mountain of rubble, tells this newspaper.
Talking to him on the phone is very difficult, as it is with most of the inhabitants of the Strip. He does not always have a battery on his mobile phone or an internet connection. Added to this is the fact that this week Israel bombed part of Al Mawasi, despite considering it a humanitarian zone, and Aljazzar stopped giving news for more than 24 hours.
On the roof of the tent where he has been living since May with 10 other members of his family are two solar panels that he bought “at a very good price” from a friend who managed to get to Egypt a few months ago. The panels capture the sun’s energy and are connected to an inverter, a device that converts the energy and stores it in two batteries, thanks to which mobile phones can be charged. This homemade photovoltaic installation was built by Aljazzar, his uncle, Khalid, who is an engineer, and his father, “a lifelong handyman.” In addition to charging phones, this structure is able, thanks to a motor, to pump water so that several families can cook and wash. “I studied literature, but in this war I am learning many things,” says Aljazzar, ironically.
For him and most Gazans, having a charged and working phone in their pocket is almost as vital as eating. In the midst of war, it is essential to be informed about what is happening further north or south, to give and receive news to loved ones, to know where there is humanitarian aid or where food is sold. But what happens when the batteries fail?
“At the moment I can only charge four or five phones a day, the batteries are dead,” Aljazzar announces. Humanitarian aid is trickling into Gaza under Israeli supervision, and the batteries are not considered humanitarian assistance or essential goods for now. In other words, the batteries in the Strip at this moment are those that were there before October 7, 2023, the day the Islamist movement Hamas, which governs Gaza, perpetrated a bloody attack against Israel in which 1,200 people died and about 250 were taken hostage. A hundred of them are still in Gaza, where the Israeli offensive began hours after this massacre, causing more than 40,000 Palestinian deaths, the displacement of 1.9 million people, out of a total population of about 2.2 million, and the destruction of most of the infrastructure, according to the UN. No negotiations to achieve a ceasefire have prospered so far.
Before, a battery cost 50 euros, now it costs 500 because there are no more and because people need them so much. Some are in bad condition. You have to know who to trust to buy them.
Abdallah Aljazzar
Aljazzar meets a trader from Rafah, his hometown, called Mohammed, who sells batteries in a market in the Al Mawasi area, which the displaced call Al Aqsa and where people sell what they can or what little they have to get money. The young man visits him with a friend, who is a technician, who is also displaced and can check the condition of the batteries. “Before, one used to cost 50 euros, now it costs 500 because there are no more and because people need them so badly. Some are in bad condition. You have to know who to trust to buy them,” he explains.
There has been no cash in the Strip since the beginning of the war, and banks and exchange offices have not been functioning for months. The cash in circulation is still the same as it was on October 7.
Aljazzar, his family or his neighbours do not have the 4,000 shekels (1,000 euros) that it would cost to replace those two batteries. Mohammed promises that he can reserve two for them, but time is running out. Someone else might buy them first, or Israel might issue a new evacuation order that forces them to flee and lose track of the seller.
Aljazzar has never left the 365 square kilometres of Gaza, but he has been in contact with NGOs and foreign journalists thanks to his work as a consultant and translator. “I urgently need two batteries and I need to get 1,100 euros,” he says in a message to his acquaintances. “I need 1,000 to buy them and 100 to pay the commission that the intermediaries will charge me to give me cash once they receive the payment in a foreign account. And I am lucky because the commission is only 10% and not 30%, as some ask,” he explains.
The system Aljazzar has devised to keep the shekels in his hands to buy the batteries is as complicated and fragile as the installation that pumps the water near his tent. But it is working. A dozen people in Europe make contributions and collect the necessary money. Using a payment platform on-lineThey send the money to Germany, to the account of a friend of Aljazzar, a Gazan studying in Berlin. When he receives the transfer, he tells his parents, who have not been able to leave Gaza and have cash.
Aljazzar is happy. “Perhaps people outside Gaza don’t understand what this means to us. This money will help a lot of people enormously,” he explains. The young man goes to collect the money from his friends’ parents’ house, with the risks that come with walking around the Strip with the equivalent of 1,000 euros in shekels at this time, and returns to his tent. “I don’t mistrust my neighbours, who love me and protect me. They know that I have been doing things for them for months, to improve our lives as displaced people,” he explains.
According to the UN, the population density in Al Mawasi is between 30,000 and 34,000 people per square kilometre, compared with an estimate of 1,200 people per square kilometre before October 2023.
Homemade ovens, baths and heaters
Aljazzar had planned to go to the market to buy batteries last Tuesday, when the Israeli bombing of Al Mawasi took place. At least twenty people were killed in the attack, although the number is uncertain, as some people were buried in the sand by the force of the explosion, which created a huge crater 10 metres deep. The place has been described as a “safe zone” by the Israeli army, although Gazans repeat in every conversation that “at the moment there is not a single safe place in the entire Strip.”
“It didn’t happen that far away, but nothing happened to us. An aunt of mine was injured and there was a lot of chaos in the camp. I spent the whole day helping out and I couldn’t go buy the batteries,” Aljazzar explained the next day in a telephone conversation.
According to the UN, the population density in Al Mawasi, located west of the city of Khan Younis, is between 30,000 and 34,000 people per square kilometre, compared with an estimate of 1,200 people per square kilometre before October 2023. In total, this humanitarian zone defined by Israel currently covers some 40 square kilometres and overcrowding coupled with a lack of infrastructure is exacerbating the humanitarian situation for the hundreds of thousands of people forced to live inside.
When Aljazzar finally arrived at the market, where Mohammed always is, things had changed. The dealer had a new battery, but only one, and the system works with two. And because it was brand new, he was asking 800 euros for it. Aljazzar decided to buy it, because it is very rare to buy an unused device these days in Gaza. “We were lucky to find it. Then we bought another one that is used, but still in good condition, for which we paid much less from a private individual. The system works again,” he says happily.
Since October, the antidote to depression and madness for this young Gazan has been to devise ways to improve the daily lives of his family and his neighbors. In these 11 months, they have built ovens, makeshift water heaters, collected used clothing to distribute to those most in need during the winter, and are now immersed in setting up a facility that brings water from a nearby well called Makrut and building septic tanks. The young man sends a video in which several men from the countryside can be seen working on the construction of these homemade toilets. “To live like human beings, with a little dignity,” he insists.
But the question of how much longer they can stay in Al Mawasi is constantly nagging at Aljazzar. Since October, he has been on the move four times. Until May, he lived with relatives, but at that time the only option was a tent, and the one they have cost several hundred euros. “Hopefully we won’t have to flee again. But the danger is getting closer every day.”
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