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Hello everyone ☀️☀️☀️ This is your friend Khaled from Rafah, #Gaza Strip, #Palestine. How are you doing today? How was your day? I hope you’re well and the sun shines over your head, warms your heart and gives you a smile!

Today I’d like to talk to you about electricity in Gaza, and solar panels!

Did you know that Gaza used to have the highest density of rooftop solar panels in the world, before the current genocidal massacre? It’s truly a remarkable place.

#solar #solarpanels #renewableenergy

Khaled Zeyada, 21 years old, from Rafah, Gaza, Palestine, standing next to our solar panel.
#Palestine #Gaza #renewableenergy #solar #solarpanels
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Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah
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Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah
• •

I saw my friend @burnitdown shared a post about Australia making electricity free several hours per day thanks to solar panels:

sfba.social/@revjss/1156308517…

And my friend @gomli asked me for details about how electricity works in Gaza.

So today is the good day!

Jeff Spencer (@revjss@sfba.social)

The Australian government has announced on November 3 that, beginning next year in much of the country and spreading to the rest by 2027, all residents will get three free hours of electricity every afternoon.
Jeff Spencer (SFBA.social)
@gomli @A Flock of Beagles
in reply to Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah

Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah
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Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah
• •
Gaza is blessed with a lot of sunshine throughout the year and altogether a nice Mediterranean climate. It’s a very sunny place, so it makes a lot of sense to use solar energy here.
A solar panel in Gaza (I didn’t take this photo)
in reply to Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah

Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah
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Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah
• •
Gaza has also been subjected to a siege since 2007 (when I was 3 years old). There are very persistent electricity shortages and power cuts for many years, exacerbated by blockades and damage to infrastructure. For households and businesses, switching to solar often reduces the cost compared to running diesel generators or paying for unpredictable grid electricity.
in reply to Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah

Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah
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Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah
• •
My family used to have a house in Rafah, and we were equipped with solar panels! It’s a very beautiful piece of technology.
Khaled Zeyada, 21 years old, from Rafah, Gaza Strip, Palestine, standing next to my family’s solar panel
My family’s solar panel
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Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah
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Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah
• •

For the nerdy engineers among us: solar panels consist in two layers of silicon: one enriched with phosphorus (N-doped), and one enriched with boron (P-doped).

Silicon is made out of sand, it’s the semiconductor that forms the structure of photovoltaic cells. It allows electrons to be excited by sunlight (but they don’t move on their own).

A diagram of a solar panel
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Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah
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Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah
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Phosphorus is added to one layer of silicon. It adds many extra electrons, and it makes the layer of silicon negative-type. Phosphorus comes from mining, or also from guano (seabird excrements).

Boron is added to the other layer of silicon. It adds many electron holes (places where electrons are missing). It makes the layer positive-type. Boron is a mined mineral.

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Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah
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Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah
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And then there’s the junction where n-type and p-type silicon meet. At this boundary, electrons from the n-layer side diffuse to the p-type layer, and an electric field forms.

It’s very clever, it only relies on light, and it’s inexhaustible.

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Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah
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Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah
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Solar installations are critical for essential health services: they have supported hospitals (for instance via a solar power plant at hospital Nasser in Khan Yunis funded with Japanese aid), helping reduce reliance on fuel-powered generators and keeping vital services running. They have supported hospitals, health-care facilities, businesses (bakeries, fish farms), start-ups, co-working spaces, etc.

This photo shows the roof of hospital Nasser before 2023.

This photo shows the roof of hospital Nasser in Khan Yunis before 2023.

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Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah
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Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah
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Solar energy also offers many Gazans a more stable, cleaner, and more cost-effective alternative to fuel-based generators or erratic grid power — especially for lighting, charging phones, powering small appliances, or supporting essential services.
Phones getting charged.
This entry was edited (1 week ago)
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Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah
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Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah
• •
In the genocidal war, people have been burning plastic a lot to make fuel. This emits very thick, black, cancer-inducing smokes that are extremely unhealthy for all Gazans. Many orphans make a living out of this, making some money to subsist but at the same time, destroying their future prospects at a healthy life. Solar panels can’t power cars, but they avoid using fuel for generators for civilians and for hospitals.
A Palestinian burns plastic waste to produce alternative fuel amid scarcity as the Israel-Hamas conflict continues, in northern Gaza Strip, September 5, 2024. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
This entry was edited (1 week ago)

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Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah
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Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah
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However, solar panels are very vulnerable to attacks, especially rooftop ones. They are physically exposed and fragile. During the current war, over the past two years, they’ve been a primary target of the occupation forces, and most of them have been damaged or destroyed. Because of the blockade, imports of panels, batteries, cables etc. have ceased completely, increasing the price and making solar systems harder to acquire or maintain and repair.
A solar panel near a tent in the Gaza Strip. A picture by Getty Images.
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Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah
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Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah
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Before our house was bombed and Rafah was razed, my family realised solar panels were one of our most precious assets, so we took one with us.

Unfortunately, it was targeted and damaged beyond repair a few months ago.

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Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah
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Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah
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So now we’ve got to find someone with a solar panel every day, and we must pay 1 shekel to charge a phone, 2 shekel to charge a phone if we don’t have the cable, and 10 shekel to charge our battery. We normally spend 19 shekel per day (1 for me, 8 for my brothers, 10 for the battery).
The solar panel battery
This entry was edited (1 week ago)
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Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah
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Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah
• •
However, I was able to find someone willing to sell his solar panel. He’s got several panels and he’s struggling to handle them all. This solar panel would allow my family to stop spending money every day charging our electricals (I’m a computer science student, my brother Omer is 16 years old and he’s attending school online, my brother Bilal is a software engineer…).
in reply to Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah

Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah
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Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah
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And it would allow us to have a small daily income by asking others for money for charging their phones, thus relying less on international donations to feed our family of 19 people and to provide them with shelter and warm clothes for winter. But the solar panel costs 1500 dollars, which we don’t have.

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Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah
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Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah
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I’m humbly coming to you to ask you to participate in our money pot to help power up #Gaza with renewable energy.
If you’re able to donate a few dollars so we can get a #solar panel for Christmas, you would help all of our family as well as helping to make Gaza cleaner and greener. I hope you will be able to assist, or to talk about it with your friends who are friends of #Palestine or of the #environment.
Khaled Zeyada, 21 years old, from Rafah, Gaza Strip, Palestine, standing next to my family’s old solar panel
#Palestine #Environment #Gaza #solar
This entry was edited (1 week ago)

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Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah
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Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah
• •

I send you all my love and I share with you my vision for a clean Gaza, with a good access to electricity, and a clean world.

👉 gofund.me/0962a012a

May God provide all of us with abundance.

#Gaza #FreeGaza #Palestine #FreePalestine #Genocide #StopGenocide #MutualAid #GazaMutualAid #MutualAidRequest #Solar #SolarEnergy #SolarPanels #Ecology #GreenEnergy #SaveThePlanet

I don’t know how to add subtitles to the video? Can someone help me? I added alternative text.

#Palestine #Gaza #ecology #MutualAid #solarenergy #solar #greenenergy #genocide #savetheplanet #freepalestine #MutualAidRequest #solarpanels #StopGenocide #freegaza #gazamutualaid

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Shad
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Shad
• •
Thank you for your thread, it's always interesting ! I hope you will raise enough for a solar panel, i can see how that would be a great help for your family.
in reply to Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah

Wouter
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Wouter
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this doesn’t exist in Gaza? It’s a powerbank and sunpanel in once. To charge phones. And it cost around 90 dollar here.

Then you can charge your phone with sun during the day and it charge also his internal battery so you can also charge when there is no sun.

A portable solar charger with two foldable panels, featuring a black and orange design.
in reply to Wouter

Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah
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Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah
• •
@FediWouter
Oh, that's really great. I wish it were available in Gaza; it would make things much easier for everyone.
@Wouter
in reply to Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah

Wouter
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Wouter
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and before the war? Because we have already long time this things here. And in such a sunny country as yours, you would think it must be there.
in reply to Wouter

Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah
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Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah
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@FediWouter
We didn't have such a portable tablet before the war, but it's really convenient.
@Wouter
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Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah
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Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah
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@FediWouter
There were similar ones in Gaza, but they weren't used much. I had one like it, but it was lost in the destruction of my house.
@Wouter
in reply to Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah

sb arms & legs
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sb arms & legs
• •

Hey Khaled!

Thank you for the fascinating thread!

I'm curious about the fuel created from plastic - do the cars require modification to use this fuel?

May you quickly receive enough donations to purchase your new solar panel :)

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Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah
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Khaled Zeyada 🇵🇸 from Rafah
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@sb
The car doesn't need any modifications; everything remains the same. Thank you, my friend. All my love and respect to you.♥️
@sb arms & legs
⇧