DaysofPal – Malak al-Zaanin carefully arranges a tray of leftover rice on a metal shelf inside the tent where she has been living since being uprooted from her home, aware that it will probably go bad before her kids ask for another meal.
The mother of four had received the food earlier that day from a nearby community kitchen and shared it with her husband and children. But with no electricity and no functioning refrigerator, preserving even a single meal has become nearly impossible.
“The children will be hungry again soon and ask for food,” she said. “By then, it will probably have spoiled because we don’t have a refrigerator, and the tent feels like an oven.”
Like thousands of displaced families across Gaza, al-Zaanin now lives through a daily struggle that extends beyond finding food. Israel’s siege has left much of the enclave without reliable electricity, turning refrigerators, once essential household appliances, into little more than storage cupboards while soaring summer temperatures accelerate food spoilage.
Food Without Refrigeration
Before the war, al-Zaanin’s refrigerator kept food fresh for days. Today, it sits unused inside her tent, covered with a cloth and filled with aid boxes and supplies for the family’s small kiosk instead of chilled food.
“We barely manage to secure food for our children,” she said. “Imagine watching it spoil in front of you while being unable to save it.”
United Nations agencies have warned that prolonged power outages, extreme heat, and the absence of refrigeration are increasing the risk of food spoilage and food-borne illnesses, particularly among displaced families living in overcrowded camps.
Fuel shortages continue to cripple Gaza’s electricity supply. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), only one million liters of diesel entered Gaza in early June 2026, far below the amount required to sustain hospitals, water systems, and other essential services.
The lack of electricity has left families unable to preserve food, while flies, insects, and rodents, common in overcrowded camps with poor sanitation, further threaten whatever meals they manage to obtain.
Al-Zaanin recalled receiving trays of rice and meat from a community kitchen but having nowhere to store the leftovers.
“We ate the meat and threw away the rice. What else could we do? That’s our life now.”
Even cold drinking water has become a luxury. When available, she occasionally buys a chilled bag of water for between two and four shekels, but most days her family drinks water from storage tanks that has been heated by the summer sun.
A Glass of Cold Water Becomes a Luxury
For 43-year-old Manal Hamad, the absence of refrigeration is not only uncomfortable but life-threatening.
The mother of three suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease, conditions that require medication to be kept refrigerated.
“I need to keep my medicine in a refrigerator,” she said.
“Cold water is a dream for me. When I drink the hot water from the tank, it feels like my heart is boiling, and my blood pressure immediately drops.”
Unable to refrigerate her medicine at home, Hamad sometimes pays people who own working refrigerators to store it temporarily. She has also paid to preserve meat, only to discover it had spoiled despite the expense.
Inside her sweltering tent, she constantly moves vegetables from one shaded corner to another in a desperate attempt to delay spoilage.
What pains her most, however, is being unable to offer her children something as simple as cold fruit, chilled juice, or a glass of cool water during Gaza’s intense summer heat.
Instead, she fills a bucket with water so they can cool themselves.
“There’s nothing else I can do,” she said.
In Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighborhood, 40-year-old Nidal Rafeeh says his refrigerator has become little more than a cupboard for canned food and personal belongings.
“Things that were once necessities have become things we pay extra for,” he said. “I pay for water, phone charging, and now cooling food or drinking water.”
With shortages of fuel, electricity, and basic goods driving up prices across Gaza, Rafeeh and his wife now cook only enough food for a single meal to avoid wasting leftovers they cannot preserve.
“We do everything we can to avoid wasting food, like thousands of families across Gaza trying to survive,” he said.
A Business Built on Gaza’s Power Crisis
Near a displacement camp in central Gaza, 34-year-old Mohammed al-Zaanin has transformed the electricity crisis into his only source of income after losing his job as a driver.
Using a diesel-powered generator, he operates a small freezer where he sells chilled drinks and water while charging mobile phones for customers.
The business has become indispensable as prolonged power cuts have created new everyday necessities.
Running the operation, however, is expensive. Operating the freezer alone costs around 1,500 shekels each month, while electricity expenses reach between 1,300 and 1,400 shekels every ten days. Despite the high costs—which are ultimately passed on to customers—demand continues to grow.
“People come every day, asking me to chill a bottle of water, cool their food… but I simply can’t meet everyone’s needs,” he said.
One encounter has remained with him.
A deaf man arrived carrying a single mango, using sign language to ask if Mohammed could keep it cold.
“It broke my heart,” he recalled. “We’ve reached the point where people bring just one mango to cool.”
He reflected on how dramatically daily life has changed.
“Nobody would have imagined coming to someone else just to charge a phone or chill a bottle of water. Today, these have become luxuries.”
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