Daniel Lubetzky

News reports have alluded to the fuel shortage in Gaza, with complaints from Hamas officials about Israel chocking Gaza off, and most recently a retort by the Israeli government that Hamas is intentionally causing the shortage (by avoiding pick up of fuel trucks) to create political crisis.

I decided to ask a couple of colleagues living in Gaza how the people on the streets saw the situation.  Here is one response:

Hi Daniel,

The fuel shortage in Gaza is real, it disrupted all aspects of life in the Strip. Yes the owners of the Gas stations for almost two month refuse to receive the fuel that Israeli side sends, since its a very limited quantity . Regarding hamas having fuel, I only can say Yes. The Hamas apparatus functions as normal , they drive every where. The normal people are the ones who suffers. I used to pay 8 shakels every day to go to work in Gaza city, I have been paying 20 shakels for the past two months. The only thing that makes transportation going is the cooking Gas, without it Gaza will stop. Today there was no electricity in Gaza city from 9am until 7pm. The garbage doesn’t get collected, so big pills of garbage in [Name of Street removed] street. Shortage in everything, electric supply, gas, fuel, agriculture products, construction material, actually for the past one year no one had built a house or one single room. I went to a funeral today for a grandmother an old lady, I heard her grandson my friend talking about the shortage of bricks and the floor to cover the grave.