Gaza already struggled with electricity shortages. Then the genocide began.

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Nihad Bashir lit a candle in her children’s room during a power outage in Deir al-Balah, Gaza, on April 1, 2012. After putting her three children—Nadine, 6; Farah, 5; and Sabri, 3—to bed, she went to an adjacent room to breastfeed her infant. Bashir fell asleep briefly, only to awake to flames spreading through her apartment.
The three children were killed in the fire, Bashir said in her testimony to Defense for Children International–Palestine, stressing that the electricity outage was the direct cause of the tragedy.
“I lost my three children. They were playing and laughing around me, then they went to sleep as I told them—and they never woke up,” she said. “I never said goodbye to them.”
The Bashir family’s loss was not an isolated incident, but a stark example of the ongoing human cost of Gaza’s electricity crisis—one that is exacerbated by the genocide and continues to claim lives today, particularly among displaced families.
On Jan. 1, 2026, one man was killed and five others were injured in a fire that broke out in a tent sheltering a displaced family inside the Yarmouk Stadium camp in Gaza City, according to the Palestinian News Agency (WAFA). In a related incident, a child named Malak Rami Ghanem died in Nuseirat camp in central Gaza after being exposed to severe cold during a winter storm. Together, these incidents reflect the harsh reality of displacement, where fragile tents offer little protection, and fire and cold become daily threats to life.
For years, access to electricity has defined daily life for more than 2 million people who have lived under recurring darkness imposed by a chronic electricity crisis. This crisis has turned the details of everyday life into a struggle for survival, forcing families to organize their days around a few fleeting hours of light and rely on dangerous alternatives, such as candles, kerosene lamps, and improvised electrical connections. The result has been repeated humanitarian disasters inside homes and hospitals. When the genocide in Gaza began after Oct. 7, 2023, Israel cut off the Gaza Strip’s electricity and continues to halt fuel supplies despite the ceasefire. Today, as promises of reconstruction resurface, Gazans insist that uninterrupted electricity must be at the forefront of any future plan, viewing it as a basic right that cannot be postponed or negotiated.
“We’re exhausted from living around electricity schedules,” said Malak, a Gaza resident who wanted to be identified only by first name for privacy reasons. “Before anything else—before rebuilding or planning the future—we just want the power to stay on so we can live like normal people again.”
Roots of a crisis that never ended
The Gaza Strip’s electricity crisis dates back to 2006, when the only power plant was bombed. The shortage deepened further with the blockade tightening the following year. After that, electricity no longer existed as a stable public service, but rather as a fleeting visitor—arriving for a few hours before disappearing for much longer stretches. At best, power supply ranged between four and six hours a day, leaving residents to spend the rest of their time in darkness or constant anticipation.
Structurally, Gaza never relied on a single source of electricity, but on a fragile mix of local production and external supply. The primary source is Gaza’s sole power plant, built with limited capacity and then severely damaged in the 2006 bombing. Additionally, it depends on fuel that remains subject to significant restrictions. Gaza also imports part of its electricity through lines from Israel, though in quantities insufficient to meet demand, as well as a limited line from Egypt that has remained intermittent and unstable. According to World Bank reports, this reliance on external sources—combined with weak infrastructure and restrictions on fuel and maintenance—has left Gaza’s electricity system in a constant state of vulnerability, unable to provide residents with a stable supply. 
This chronic outage reshaped daily life entirely. Families planned their days around electricity schedules—when to cook, when to wash clothes, when to charge phones, and when children could study. But even that all disappeared after Oct. 7, 2023.
At the start of the genocide, Israel cut power off to Gaza and has not restored it. Suddenly, there was no longer any talk of electricity schedules or limited hours of supply. Instead, Gaza was plunged into a comprehensive blackout that engulfed homes, hospitals, and water pumping stations.
Forced alternatives that do not sustain life
Confronted with this reality, Gaza’s residents have turned to forced energy alternatives that provide only the bare minimum of services. Solar panels have spread across rooftops, yet their capacity remains limited—often sufficient only for dim lighting and phone charging, but incapable of powering essential appliances or medical equipment. United Nations reports note that, although reliance on solar energy has increased, it has had little effect on living conditions.
Some families have resorted to generators, but their use depends on fuel that has become scarce and costly due to restrictions on imports. In overcrowded shelters, generators also pose serious safety risks, including poisoning from exhaust fumes. Humanitarian agencies report sharp fuel price increases, forcing many families to abandon generators altogether.
For most residents, battery-powered lamps and candles have become the primary sources of light, despite the severe risks they pose. Medical organizations working in Gaza have documented widespread burn injuries and household accidents linked to unsafe lighting and improvised solutions, underscoring how such measures neither ensure a dignified life nor reduce the deep vulnerability people face.
Water, food, and livelihoods at risk
The impact of electricity cuts extends far beyond lighting, striking at the heart of water access and food security. Water pumping and desalination plants depend almost entirely on electricity, and their absence has made access to clean water a daily struggle.
Without refrigeration, food storage has become nearly impossible, forcing families to secure meals day by day. Electricity cuts have also eroded livelihoods, particularly small professions dependent on power, such as tailoring, carpentry, and home-based workshops.
Abu Ahmad, a tailor from Gaza, explained how the power outage has rendered his profession nearly impossible. 
“I used to work all day and provide for my family. Today, if I manage to work for an hour, I consider myself lucky,” he said, noting that sewing machines cannot operate without a stable power supply, and that generators are both costly and dangerous amid severe fuel shortages.
He added that the suspension of work does not only mean the loss of income, but also the accumulation of debt and the inability to meet a family’s most basic needs. U.N. reports confirm that electricity cuts and infrastructure destruction have paralyzed small businesses, deepening unemployment and the living crisis.
“We live one day at a time”
Umm Fawzi, a mother of several children living in Gaza, described the situation as “very bad” under the ongoing electricity cuts, which have turned the simplest details of daily life into continuous hardship. Women in Gaza are now forced to wash clothes by hand—something that has largely disappeared elsewhere in the world, but the absence of electricity leaves them with no alternative.
Umm Fawzi noted that power outages also mean the loss of refrigeration, making food storage impossible and forcing families to secure food on a day-to-day basis.
One of Umm Fawzi’s children has asthma and at times requires nebulization sessions using a special medical device. Although Umm Fawzi has a nebulizer at home, the lack of electricity prevents her from using it, forcing her to take her child to the hospital—a type of facility that also often struggles with power outages.
Mena, Umm Fawzi’s daughter, said that the moment the power goes out is the most frightening part of her day, making it difficult for her to sleep and feel safe. Studying under dim light or weak batteries, she has struggled to concentrate, a reality that affects both her education and psychological well-being. As humanitarian organizations warn, children in Gaza are among the most affected by the electricity crisis, facing a form of deprivation that goes beyond the loss of light to include the loss of security and a normal childhood.
Health care at the mercy of electricity
The human cost of Gaza’s electricity crisis is most starkly visible in the health sector. In Gaza, electricity has become a fragile condition for patients’ survival. Hospitals and medical centers rely on a steady power supply to operate lifesaving equipment, including ventilators, dialysis machines, and incubators for premature infants, as well as operating rooms and intensive care units.
With prolonged and repeated power outages, medical staff have been forced to postpone surgeries, reduce treatment sessions, and work under emergency conditions that do not guarantee patient safety. According to the World Health Organization, recurrent electricity cuts have directly undermined hospitals’ ability in Gaza to provide essential health care services, particularly for patients who depend on electricity-powered medical devices on a continuous basis.
The U.N. for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has also warned that the electricity crisis has further weakened an already fragile health system, pushing hospitals into a state of near-permanent emergency. Under these conditions, any sudden power outage becomes an immediate threat to patients’ lives.
Reconstruction or reproduction of crisis?
Today, as discussions around the reconstruction of Gaza resurface, the question of electricity returns forcefully to the forefront. For Gazans, rebuilding new homes holds little meaning without guarantees of a stable and safe power supply. Any reconstruction process that does not begin with energy risks reproducing the very crisis it claims to resolve.
For the people of the Gaza Strip, electricity is neither a negotiable item nor a technical demand—it is a fundamental right and a condition for life itself. A city rebuilt without electricity is not a livable city, but another space of waiting and suffering, trapped in an endless darkness.
Editorial Team:Sahar Fatima, Lead EditorCarolyn Copeland, Top EditorStephanie Harris, Copy Editor