Gaza City, Gaza Strip – Hajj Rabhi al-Fairi, 79, has spent more than four hours waiting outside his Gaza City home with his children and neighbours for their turn to use a small generator.
The owner fills the machine with fuel, starts a timer and switches it on.
Each household receives a few minutes to power a pump that sends water to a rooftop storage tank before the generator is moved to the next home.
For al-Fairi and his neighbours, this is their only way to get water.
“We have an old water pump, but there is no electricity to run it. We have to rent a generator,” al-Fairi told Al Jazeera.
Since the family returned home in October 2025, a month after fleeing an Israeli assault on their neighbourhood, generators have become a common sight on the streets of Nassr.
When one arrives, residents gather around it with jerrycans of diesel, paying for the fuel and the machine’s use themselves.
“We came back and found the place a tragedy,” he said.
Their neighbourhood and home sustained extensive damage during years of Israeli bombardment. Municipal electricity and water services remain unavailable, leaving the family dependent on an old pump that cannot move water to the rooftop tank without power.
Each family needs only seven or eight minutes to fill its tank, but the number of apartments in the building means the generator must be rented for about an hour.
The price has also increased. Al-Fairi said families previously paid 80 to 90 shekels ($26 to $30) for an hour. At times, the cost has climbed to 100 or 120 shekels ($33 to $40), excluding diesel.
![A generator passes through a northern Gaza neighbourhood [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/ Al Jazeera]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==)
A mobile generator serves one home at a time
Khalil Abu Ouda, 39, transports a generator mounted on a horse-drawn cart from house to house. Its metal body is coated with soot and grease, and white smoke billows from the engine as it runs.
At each stop, Abu Ouda connects long electrical cables to the home’s water pump. The cables stretch across the street while neighbours wait nearby for their turn.
“Go on, switch it on,” someone calls.
For Abu Ouda, the generator provides an essential neighbourhood service and a crucial source of income for his family.
He says few small, mobile generators like his remain operational in Gaza. Many have broken down, while Israel’s siege has made spare parts difficult to find or prohibitively expensive.
Mechanics are also costly, and fuel and engine oil are becoming increasingly scarce.
“If I could, I would lower the price as much as possible,” he says.
At the same time, demand has reached unprecedented levels.
“People are under pressure and they need water. If I stayed working until morning, I would keep working,” Abu Ouda says.
To keep up, he often works 10 to 12 hours a day, placing a heavy burden on both himself and the generator.
“But this is our livelihood. There is no alternative,” he said.
Paying for tasks once done at home
Many Palestinians in Gaza have lost their homes or belongings during Israel’s war on the enclave, forcing them to rent equipment or pay for services needed to complete basic household chores.
Washing clothes is one such task. With little or no electricity, it can no longer be done at home.
Earlier in the war, 52-year-old Abeer Ghorab washed everything herself. Now she collects clothes from her tent and takes them to a nearby laundry, where they can be washed and dried more quickly and with less effort.
“When these laundries started opening, they gave us some relief,” Ghorab said.
The service is especially valuable during winter, when heavy clothing, blankets and bedding can take a long time to dry.
“In winter, the tracksuits are heavy. They need another day to dry,” she said. “When I bring them here, they wash and dry them for me, and I get them back clean and dry. That really helps.”
With a limited income, however, Ghorab cannot afford the laundry service every day.
Before the war, she had a washing machine, a refrigerator and a regular electricity supply at home.
“Things we once took for granted have become dreams. Now we have to pay for every little thing we used to do at home.”
Households stripped of basic infrastructure
Across Gaza, the systems and appliances that once allowed families to manage daily life at home have been severely disrupted.
A recent United Nations assessment found that 91 percent of surveyed households experienced moderate-to-high water shortages in early August.
A separate damage assessment by the authority found that 107,941 of the 178,632 housing units inspected – about 60 percent – were severely damaged, destroyed or otherwise deemed uninhabitable.
Water, electricity and sanitation systems have been disrupted, along with the household appliances families relied on for everyday tasks.
For families living in damaged homes, tents or makeshift shelters, even routine chores now come at a cost.
Laundry adapts to power shortages
Fadi Abu Shawarb, 23, has worked at his family’s al-Hurriya laundry for six years.
Before the war, the business used large 50kg (110lb) washing machines for carpets, blankets and other heavy loads. The machines are now too expensive to operate.
“We started replacing the 50kg machines with 25kg ones because there is not enough electricity,” Fadi says. “There are no solar panels, no reliable power, and the generators are always breaking down.”
Most customers are displaced families without electricity, water or washing machines at home.
The laundry now processes about 20 to 30 loads a day, with clothes washing among its most requested services.
A load costs six shekels ($2) when the business can use solar power and 12 shekels ($4) when it must rely on a generator.
Even those prices are difficult for many people to afford. “People’s situation is difficult,” he says.
For Ghorab, the laundry is only one of the many expenses she must now budget for.
“I feel like I’m going through a difficult time,” she says. “I have to pay for every little thing in my day, and with how difficult things are, it’s hard to keep up with everything.”
