Above the tents of a crowded displacement camp in Khan Yunis, in southern Gaza, homemade wind turbines built from scrap metal and salvaged debris are turning in the sea breeze — and bringing a little electricity to families who have lived without reliable power for years. The turbines are the work of Kamal Al-Dabary, a 60-year-old former engineering student known locally as Abu Ayman, who decided that if the wind was free, it could also be put to work.
The story was reported by AFP on 5 November 2026, and it captures a small act of ingenuity inside a much larger crisis. According to the World Bank, more than 90 per cent of Gaza’s power generation and distribution capacity had been destroyed by April 2026. For families living in tents, even a single light bulb or a charged phone has become a luxury.
Built from scooter motors and water tanks
The turbines are assembled from whatever the camp can spare. Scooter motors provide the generator, old water tanks are cut into blades, and the circuits are put together from electrical parts recovered from destroyed homes. As the wind turns the blades, it drives the motor and generates electricity, which is stored in batteries for use later.
Sitting on the ground at a plastic table, Dabary twists cables together and tests them with a multimeter. A small bulb flickers on, then another — the current is flowing.
“That’s when the idea of a wind turbine came to mind. Why not harness the wind? So we salvaged parts from the rubble,” Dabary told AFP.
Why wind, when solar panels cost nearly $5,000
Solar power was the camp’s first answer. “When solar panels were still relatively affordable, we bought one and kept moving it around to follow the sun,” Dabary said. But after three years of war, prices have soared as aid and commercial supplies have trickled into Gaza through tightly controlled crossings. A single solar panel now costs at least 15,000 shekels — nearly $5,000 — putting it out of reach for most Gazans. France 24‘s account of the same AFP report adds that solar equipment has become unaffordable for many residents as prices climbed.
“We haven’t had work or income for three years,” Dabary added. The wind, unlike a solar panel, costs nothing to harvest — and the parts to catch it were already lying in the rubble.
Enough power for phones, lights — and a child’s nebulizer
The output is modest. The turbines charge mobile phones and run lights, fans and even electric razors — small comforts that have become luxuries for families still living in tents and shelters. And because the power is stored in batteries, it is there after dark — the very hours when a sick child may need help.
Neighbours say the power matters most at night, when a child needs medical care and there is nowhere else to turn. “The system has changed everything,” said 50-year-old Saleh ben Hasan. With health care and medication hard to access in Gaza, the stored power can also help keep medical equipment running. “If a child needs a nebulizer in the middle of the night, who else can we turn to?” he said. “Electricity is needed… So we turn to our brother Abu Ayman.”
Every watt counts in a camp with no grid
The turbines will not rebuild a power grid. Their output remains modest, and the reports do not say how many turbines Dabary has built or how many families they serve. But in a camp where shortages are constant, every watt counts.
Nearly all of Gaza’s residents were displaced at least once during the war, and most now live in a small area still under Hamas rule, while Israel controls more than 60 per cent of the territory along its perimeter. The war was triggered by Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel on 7 October 2023.
For Dabary, the turbines are about holding on. “They help us hold on… until God delivers us from this ordeal and we can return home,” he said. See our Gaza ceasefire page for the latest updates on the truce and the humanitarian situation.
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