Life without refrigerators: Gaza residents struggle with heat and food spoilage | Powerful Stories

Gaza City – Inside the tent Malak al-Zaanin has been living there ever since he fled his home in Gazaa mother of four holding a tray of rice that her family received this afternoon from a nearby kitchen.

She has already shared the food with her husband and children, but her next concern is how to protect the precious leftovers from perishing in the scorching heat.

Before the war, his refrigerator kept food for several days, but because of a lack of electricity due to the Israeli siege in Gazait has now become unusable inside the tent.

He placed the remaining rice on metal shelves inside the tent, knowing what would happen amid the food crisis in Gaza.

“Children will feel hungry again soon and will ask for food,” he says.

“By that time, it will probably be ruined because we don’t have a refrigerator, and the tent is like an oven.”

Electricity crisis in Gaza

UN agencies have previously warned that extreme heat, long-term power cuts and a lack of refrigeration in Gaza are increasing the risk of food spoilage and food-borne diseases, especially among displaced families.

Fuel supplies remain extremely low, and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimates that only 1 million liters (265,000 gallons) of diesel have entered Gaza by early June 2026, far short of the amount needed to keep life-saving operations running.

Shortages could also disrupt electricity, water systems and other essential services, but many families in Gaza are already feeling the effects of the power crisis.

Malak’s struggle is similar to that of countless women across Gaza, who now face the dual challenge of finding food, but the lack of electricity and refrigeration, and keeping it.

He said: “We struggle to get food for our children. “Imagine seeing it perishing in front of you but you are unable to save it.”

Apart from the heat, stored food is also vulnerable to flies, insects and rodents which are common in unsanitary displacement camps.

“I’ve turned (the fridge) into a table and shelves,” he says, lifting the cloth covering the unit, revealing that it was filled with boxes of aid and supplies for the family’s small home.

The only other options, refrigeration services, are expensive or unavailable.

She remembers that she once received trays of rice and meat, but did not find a place to store the leftovers after her children had eaten.

“We ate the meat and threw away the rice, what else can we do?”

When a bag of cold water is available, Malak sometimes buys two shekels ($0.35-$0.70), but most of the time the family has nothing but water from the storage tank in the summer sun.

Cold water is a dream

A short walk away, 43-year-old Manal Hamad shares the same humble dream: a glass of cold water.

“I have to keep my medicine in the fridge,” he said.

“Cold water is a dream for me. When I drink hot water from the tank, I feel like my heart is boiling, and my blood pressure drops immediately.

Manal, a mother of three who suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease, needs life-saving medicine that requires her to keep it refrigerated at all times.

Sometimes he has to pay people with refrigerators to keep his medicine cold or to store leftover food, but even those temporary measures often fail.

Once he had to pay 10 shekels ($3) to put meat in the freezer, only to find out later that it was spoiled.

He constantly had to move leaves from one corner of his hot tent to another, trying to slow down the damage.

What hurts her the most is seeing her children endure the heat but not giving them cool fruit, water or cold water.

Instead they fill a bucket with water to cool it down.

“There is nothing else I can do,” he said.

Cabinet

In the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City, 40-year-old Nidal Rafeeh has found another use for a refrigerator that was rendered useless during Israel’s war in Gaza – it has become a cupboard for storing canned food and personal items.

“Things that used to be important have become things that we pay a lot of money for,” he says. I pay for water, pay for the phone, and now I’m cooling food or drinking water.

When Israel’s siege of Gaza leads to a huge increase in supplies and energy, small amounts of money accumulate, forcing Nidal and his wife to cook only one meal to avoid wasting leftovers.

“We do everything we can to avoid wasting food, as thousands of families in Gaza are trying to survive,” he said.

Near the central Gaza camp, 34-year-old Mohammed al-Zaanin, a refugee from Beit Hanoon, turned a small refrigerator into his only source of income after losing his job as a driver.

Now he runs a wartime survival business, charging phones and selling soft drinks and water – jobs that seemed like long-term power cuts due to the Israeli ban have created new daily needs.

Mohammed relies on a diesel generator to power the refrigerator and charging station, but the cost is high.

Running the refrigerator alone costs about 1,500 shekels per month ($488), while electricity bills reach 1,300–1,400 shekels ($423-$456) every 10 days, with energy costing about 35 shekels ($11.39) per kilowatt. Even the big cost, which must fall on the customer, does not lack the people who use its services.

“People come every day, asking me to cool a bottle of water, cool food… but I can’t meet everyone’s needs,” he said.

He remembers one time a deaf man arrived carrying a mango, using sign language, pleading with Mohammed to cool it in the refrigerator.

He said: “It hurt me so much, that we have reached a point where people only bring one mango to cool it down.”

No one would think of coming to someone’s place just to make a phone call or cool a bottle of water.