Gazans Face Darkness as War Destroys Power Grid

War has completely destroyed Gaza's power grid, leaving families dependent on generators and private charging stations for survival.

In Deir el-Balah, 28-year-old Abdel Karim Salman starts every morning with a simple yet desperate task. He carries his own phone and his wife's device, both completely drained of power.

He walks to a nearby charging point to restore their battery life before the night begins. Throughout the darkness, he relies solely on the small phone torches to illuminate the tent where his family sleeps.

Abdel Karim, a former civil engineer from Beit Lahiya, was displaced to this central Gaza location with his wife, two young children, and roughly thirty extended family members.

Their home was obliterated on October 9, 2023, during the initial days of the conflict. Since then, life has been defined by displacement and a severe lack of basic utilities like electricity for a single light bulb.

To keep the darkness at bay, he charges the phones repeatedly, even though the constant use of the torch function drains them rapidly.

"My children are under five years old and get terrified if they wake up in the dark," he explains regarding the necessity of using these devices as lamps.

Abdel Karim describes the suffering caused by electricity shortages as one of the largest silent crises that receives very little international attention.

For him, the daily routine of charging has become an exhausting burden that drains his limited resources and energy.

He walks between 150 and 200 meters every day to reach a charging point, paying between two and four shekels per session, twice daily.

This amounts to roughly eight to ten shekels per day just for charging phones, which equals about 270 to 300 shekels monthly.

This is a massive financial strain for displaced families earning little income amid the war-driven economic crisis in the territory.

On many days and nights, the family sleeps in total darkness inside their tent because they cannot afford to recharge the phones.

With municipality-supplied electricity absent for two years, temporary alternatives like solar-powered lamps have emerged but remain unaffordable for most residents.

Prices for these lamps have increased tenfold during the war, reaching about 300 shekels per unit, which is too expensive for the average family.

Solar energy systems present an even steeper financial barrier, with panels costing around 420 dollars each.

The total cost for a functional system includes a battery priced at approximately 1,200 dollars and the necessary inverter equipment.

Critical supplies are vanishingly rare across the Gaza Strip, a situation directly caused by stringent Israeli blockades that have prevented their entry since hostilities commenced. For individuals like Abdel Karim, who found himself unemployed immediately after the conflict started, even modest financial sums are now impossible to secure.

In response to the grid's collapse, private diesel-powered generators have emerged as a makeshift solution. Yet, these alternatives remain financially inaccessible to the vast majority of residents. Furthermore, their reliability is compromised by erratic fuel deliveries that struggle to cross the border crossings. Consequently, with every available option proving prohibitively costly, countless families find themselves trapped in a predicament identical to that of Abdel Karim.

The consequences of these power outages extend far beyond the inability to light a room or charge a device; they have disrupted every facet of daily existence, placing an immense burden on households with children. "There is no refrigerator, no washing machine … even baby milk cannot be stored for more than two or three hours," Abdel Karim recounts, contrasting this harsh reality with his prior life, when his home was equipped with functioning appliances and consistent power. "The phone charging socket used to be right beside my bed. I could plug it in whenever I wanted. Today, that has become a dream inside this tent," he adds.

The psychological toll on his children has been severe, particularly for his eldest son, who suffers from a lack of electronic distractions amidst such bleak surroundings. "There is no TV or screen. He keeps asking for the phone all the time just to calm down, but that also needs charging. Everything is dependent on electricity," he explains. Abdel Karim asserts that his plight is not isolated; he believes nearly every person in Gaza faces this same existence, noting that even families in neighboring camps who attempted to pool resources to purchase energy systems were ultimately unable to afford them. "We hope God brings relief … because we are truly left without any solutions, as if we were abandoned in the desert," he says.

This crisis is the culmination of a long-standing issue. On October 7, 2023, Hamas initiated an assault on southern Israel, prompting Israel to launch its war against Gaza. More than two years later, the enclave has been devastated by Israeli strikes, resulting in the deaths of over 75,000 Palestinians. However, the struggle for power predates the current war; Gaza previously endured daily rolling blackouts due to restricted imports from Israel and fuel deficits.

Although Israel withdrew its illegal settlements in 2005, it maintained control over the enclave's borders and frequently conducted attacks. Even before the escalation, most households received only a handful of hours of electricity daily, relying on a precarious combination of imported power and Gaza's single power plant. The situation deteriorated rapidly after October 7, when Israel imposed a "complete siege," severing electricity supplies and blocking fuel shipments. Within days, the power plant ceased operations due to fuel exhaustion, and by October 11, 2023, UN agencies reported that the territory had entered a total blackout. With transmission lines severed and fuel imports halted, homes, hospitals, water systems, and communication networks lost reliable power, forcing a shift toward limited and unsustainable generator usage. Since that time, Gaza's electrical infrastructure has continued to crumble under the weight of fuel scarcity and the widespread physical destruction of the grid.

Generators currently serve as the primary backup power source, yet severe fuel shortages cripple essential services like healthcare, water production, and telecommunications.

Between 2025 and 2026, Gaza's electrical grid remains effectively broken, leaving power access fragmented, unreliable, and dependent entirely on emergency measures.

This crisis has inadvertently created a new income stream for Jamal Musbah, a fifty-year-old running a mobile phone charging station powered by solar panels and a generator.

Before the conflict, Jamal farmed two plots on the eastern borders of Deir el-Balah. Today, bulldozers have destroyed his land, which now sits under Israeli control.

His charging station has become his sole livelihood, supporting his eight children in the absence of his former agricultural work.

"I operated an energy system with six panels, batteries, and a water pump for irrigating my land before the war," Jamal tells Al Jazeera.

Since the war began and blackouts struck, Jamal repurposed his solar setup to charge phones, though he faced immense difficulties.

"Phone charging demand skyrocketed, draining my batteries within months as home power vanished," he explains.

Trouble compounded when a neighboring house came under attack, destroying four of his six solar panels and slashing his income potential.

Initially, Jamal offered food refrigeration alongside charging services, but damage and depleted batteries forced him to halt those operations.

"We once charged 100 to 200 phones daily, but reduced panel efficiency now limits us to 50 to 60," Jamal states.

Weather conditions, heavy cloud cover, and the winter season further degrade solar performance, forcing reliance on generators that barely function.

"In winter, you must seek alternatives to solar panels and turn to generators that fail constantly," he says. "The crisis feels like an endless cycle of suffering."

His station now runs on a minimal system of two panels and a single battery.

Residents from nearby areas, including university students and displaced families, depend on this service due to a lack of alternatives and the prohibitive cost of generator fuel.

"My sons are university graduates earning their living from this station. We charge 1 to 2 shekels per phone," Jamal notes.

Although Jamal profits from the crisis, he suffers the same hardships as everyone else in Gaza.

"Economic hardship affects us all, making even basic services like phone charging a heavy burden," he adds. "No local solutions exist for this crisis."

"The only real and lasting solution is the official restoration of electricity to the Gaza Strip.