‘Everything is destroyed’: Solar panel maker in Gaza faces uncertain future

A start-up in Gaza that powers thousands of homes in the besieged enclave with cheaper solar panels is uncertain about its future.

SunBox’s office and warehouses near Al Shifa hospital in central and eastern Gaza city have been bombed, said Kamal Almashharawi, the company’s head of operations.

Mr Almashharawi is not sure whether operations will restart once the war ends.

“We are not sure how Gaza is going to look like after this war,” he told The National.

“When I left Gaza, it was just rubble. It’s mass destruction and everything is destroyed. It [will] cost billions of dollars to rebuild … Gaza.”

Mr Almashharawi was evacuated from Gaza last month and is currently in Riyadh with his family.

“We were doing great,” Mr Almashharawi said.

“But since the war began, we weren’t able to do work or have access to supplies or projects. We don’t have any idea what happened to projects, whether they still exist or are damaged,” Mr Almashharawi said. “We were supposed to receive payments from our projects but we can’t because of the war and it’s been very difficult to keep up the business, try to cover all those expenses.”

SunBox provides cheap solar panels for residential buildings as well as to factories and other establishments. It has taken up more than 300 projects since it launched its operations in 2018 and was planning to raise more money to expand its operations.

“The company is shut and I don’t even know how our employees are, whether they are alive or injured. I couldn’t reach out to them because of the internet service breakdown,” Mr Almashharawi said.

The company lost contact with its 10 full-time employees and five part-time workers when they moved from the north to the south, he said.

While Sunbox continued to pay employee salaries online from its emergency fund, Mr Almashharawi said they were not certain whether the money was being received.

There are hundreds of startups in Gaza operating in different fields and facing a bleak future as the war has destroyed the entire business ecosystem, Mr Almashharawi said.

“I don’t think any company can survive, especially if it is a start-up, which is a fragile business,” he added.

The economic outlook for the territory was grim even before the war broke out, with high unemployment and poverty as well as negligible foreign investment.

The war is expected to exacerbate the situation with most of the enclave’s infrastructure damaged.

“I heard wonderful stories before the war [about startups]. I don’t think those stories exist any more,” Mr Almashharawi said.

“The infrastructure for the start-ups, the client base, the investment, everything is destroyed.”

I heard wonderful stories before the war about start-ups. I don’t think those stories exist any more

KAMAL ALMASHHARAWI

Head of operations at SunBox