9/16/2024–|Last update: 9/16/202402:14 AM (Makkah Time)
Under bombardment and siege, Gazans are innovating to develop systems to help displaced people survive, including charging mobile phones, which are now needed as much as food and drink.
In a report titled “Abdullah and the Journey to Buy Batteries That Save People in Gaza,” the Spanish newspaper El Pais wrote the story of the young man, Abdullah Al-Jazzar, who emerged as one of the most prominent designers of systems for charging mobile phones in the Gaza Strip.
The movement in front of Abdullah’s tent (24 years old) in Al-Mawasi in Khan Yunis, south of Gaza, is almost non-stop, as dozens of people come to charge their mobile phones for free from the sockets placed at their disposal on a simple wooden table at the entrance to his family’s tent.
The Spanish newspaper spoke to Abdullah by phone in a process it described as complicated due to internet outages, or because his phone did not have a charged battery, not to mention the bombing that Al-Mawasi was subjected to in recent days, which caused Abdullah to disappear for 24 hours.
El Pais likens the place to a field phone booth, and Abdullah says he can usually charge 70 phones a day.
“War taught me”
Abdullah was not prepared for all this. He studied English literature at Al-Azhar University, which was reduced to a pile of rubble. “But the war taught me many things.”
The tent is topped with two solar panels that he bought at a good price from a friend who was able to leave for Egypt a few months ago. They capture solar energy that is transmitted by a converter and stored in two charging batteries.
Abdullah designed the system in collaboration with his father and his nephew, the engineer.
The batteries also help power a motor to pump water for cooking and bathing.
The need for a mobile phone in Gaza is only matched by the need for food and drink. It is the means by which displaced people know what is happening in the north and south, inform their families of their news, and know where aid is distributed.
But what if a piece of the system goes down?
The batteries were exhausted, and the system Abdullah designed could no longer charge more than 5 phones a day.
Aid enters Gaza only by drip, and in all cases it excludes batteries, which are not considered an essential commodity, and all that is available dates back to before the outbreak of the war on October 7.
Abdullah knows a merchant who sells batteries in a nearby market in Rafah, his hometown, but finding the money is complicated. The price of batteries has jumped from $55 before the war to $550. Mohammed fears that he will run out of time to find the money and the merchant will have to sell the batteries, or that a new evacuation order will be issued before he can buy them.
Urgent appeal
Abdullah never left Gaza, but he kept in touch with foreign organizations and journalists through his work as a consultant and translator. He used his network of contacts to post an urgent letter asking for help in raising $1,110 to buy two batteries, plus $110 for the commission of middlemen who would deliver the money to him in cash after a relative received it in a foreign account.
Ten people living in Europe were able to collect the amount and then transfer it to the account of a friend of Abdullah’s in Germany, who also notified his parents, who were unable to leave the Strip and had the amount in cash.
“This money will help a lot of people,” Abdullah told El Pais.
But Abdullah was unable to buy the batteries last Tuesday as he had planned. Israel bombed Al-Mawasi violently, killing at least 20 people, and Abdullah Sawad spent his day treating the victims.
According to the United Nations, between 30,000 and 34,000 people are crammed into the camp per square kilometer, compared to 1,200 before the war. The overcrowding crisis has been exacerbated by Israel’s decision to reduce what it claims is a “humanitarian zone” to 40 square kilometers.
When Abdullah finally got to the market, he only had one battery, while the system needed two to operate.
The dealer asked about $890 for the battery, but Abdullah still chose to buy it.
“We are lucky to have it. We will later buy another used battery in good condition, and pay a much lower price,” he told El Pais.
Antidote to madness
Creating something that makes people’s lives (or misery?) easier in Gaza is Abdullah’s recipe for fighting depression and madness.
He was able to help operate dilapidated ovens and water heaters, and is currently working on developing a system to pump water from a nearby well and prepare sanitary pits, “so that we can live with a little dignity that befits us as human beings.”
Last May was his last time in a house, after which he ended up displaced for the fourth time, but in a field tent that he shared with ten of his relatives, which cost him a few hundred dollars.
Abdullah hopes that Al Mawasi will be the last displacement station, but the war does not stop, and he does not know how long this fourth displacement journey will last.