The Tel al-Hawa neighbourhood, south of Gaza City, was crushed by Israel's onslaught during two years of genocide. The neighbourhood still reeks of smoke and dust. Houses lie flattened or hollowed out, their walls peeled open like wounded bodies.
But amid the grey silence, lies a hulking mass of scorched metal: an abandoned Israeli armoured personnel carrier, rust-eaten, oil-stained, and tilted slightly on one side as if exhausted from the months of killing it once served.
For most who passed by, it was just another remnant of the invasion. But for Yahya Khazeeq, a 32-year-old Palestinian man in Gaza, it was something else entirely.
Khazeeq's home, belongings, and sense of normalcy were all reduced to rubble by the Israeli army. He returned to Tel al-Hawa after the withdrawal of Israeli forces in early October, with nothing but a need to stay alive and a determination not to drown in despair.
Wandering through the ruins of what used to be his neighbours' homes, he noticed the abandoned Israeli armoured personnel carrier. A thought began to form.
"I looked at it and said to myself: If this is going to stay here, let it serve life […] Instead of being a witness to death, why not turn it into something useful for the people?" Yahya remarked to The New Arab.
A machine of death, rewired for life
Cleaning the vehicle was a battle of its own. Yahya spent days removing garbage, empty shells, sticky black oil, and the residue of gunpowder embedded in the metal walls.
Once it was safe, he began installing a small solar panel, wires, and inverters, enough to power chargers and small devices for families who had been without electricity for months.
To some, Yahya's idea appeared absurd; the carrier symbolised raids, fear, and nighttime violence. Others worried it might still contain hazardous materials. But Yahya reassured all naysayers: "It's clean, safe, and completely empty. The army left it only because it broke down."
Slowly, the residents of Tel al-Hawa approached the vehicle. Children climbed onto it like a playground structure. Teenagers took photos. Families gathered around it to charge phones that had become their last link to the outside world, to loved ones, to what remains of Gaza's shattered communication network.
With time, the carrier became more than a charging station.
Among the first to use the charging point was Abu Mahmoud al-Sousi, whose home, like Yahya's, was pulverised during the assault.
"We are people who do not die. Look around you: everything is broken, burned, shattered. Houses, memories, families, nothing is the same. But here we are, turning a machine meant to terrify us into something that helps us live," the 65-year-old father of six remarked to TNA.
"This vehicle used to enter our neighbourhoods as a weapon," he added. "Today it serves us. This alone is a message to the whole world: we deserve life. The greatest proof of Palestinian will is that we transform what was built to kill us into something beneficial. From death to electricity. From destruction to hope. We rise again, no matter what."
Nearby, Umm Luay al-Hattab, now living in a tent with her four children, approached the carrier with both a sense of fear and gratitude.
"For months we've lived without electricity, without homes, without anything," she described to TNA. "We used to wait hours in line just to charge a phone. When I first saw this, I was terrified. This vehicle was used to chase us, to threaten us. But when I heard that a young man from our neighbourhood turned it into a charging station, I felt something return to us, something small, but precious."
"Someone with this kind of will cannot be defeated. Yahya didn't cry over his destroyed house; he didn't sit with his hands tied. He took what came to kill us and turned it into something that serves us. This simple project eases so much of our daily struggle. Day by day, we feel life returning, even in tiny steps," al-Hattab added.
"If the people of Gaza can turn an armoured vehicle into a power charging station, believe me, they can rebuild a country. We do not die, and we are not broken," she further said.
Imagining a better future
Tel al-Hawa still bears the marks of one of the deadliest assaults by Israel on Gaza. In the course of the two-year genocide by Israel, at least 70,000 Palestinians were killed, over 170,000 wounded, and nearly 90 per cent of civilian infrastructure was destroyed across the besieged coastal enclave.
And yet, this battered Israeli armoured carrier, once a symbol of oppression, now stands repurposed by a Palestinian community refusing to vanish.
Residents began helping Yahya stabilise the solar panels, clean the surroundings, and secure the area. Some brought tools; others brought encouragement.
The vehicle became a communal project, a shared declaration that life in Gaza cannot be extinguished.
"I want to turn it into a small café where people can sit, talk, and breathe," he said. "A place of peace. A break from everything the war left behind."
"The war took everything," Yahya added. "But it didn't take our ability to turn ashes into life. Even from inside an armoured vehicle, we can begin again."