“The blackouts cause a lot of trouble for merchants, factories, families and students, my wife has to work overnight sometimes when the electricity comes on to make foo for the family,” Abu Khalil, who works in a Gaza shop said.
“I leave home at 7am and return at evening and find no power, our lives are conducted in the dark,” he said.
Abu Khalil said he was worried about buying a generator, after two fires erupted in the last month from faulty models, and a third – improperly stored inside a home – resulted in the death of three children from carbon monoxide poisoning.
Press photographer Yousef Deeb said that he often stays up into the odd hours of the night to e-mail photos to foreign press agencies and edit his work. He said he has to wait until the power comes on to file his work, often delaying deadlines for hours and jeopardizing a story.
Hala Iskeik is a university student, who said finding time to get work done while it was still light out was next to impossible with the short winter days lasting less than 11 hours. She said she worries even more about her brothers, both of whom are studying for the Tawjihi, the university entrance exam. Students regularly study 12 hours a day for the tests, and Hala said there were no candles in the house to help them when the lights went out.
Deputy chief of the Gaza Power Authority Kan’an Ubeid said that on top of the irregular fuel deliveries a technical problem at the plant caused it to shut off four hours overnight on Tuesday, blacking out most of Gaza city and much of the central Strip.
He said there was little the authority could do to fix the situation, noting a reliance on industrial fuel from donors and the PA as well as the goodwill of Israeli crossings officials to allow it into the Strip. Technical issues were not likely to be permanently solved either, he noted, as the authority continued to wait for thousands of replacement parts and upgrade equipment blocked by Israel from entering the Strip.
Desertpeace 
Ld Elon said,
February 11, 2010 at 15:14
Collectve punishment i would say, is a universal princible, without it there’d be little change, within the population of such a specie.
Your aware that collective will can be Good or Bad, either way, it changes everything.
So collective punishment can heal long wounds, it can cause wrifths between family and the communite in general.
It can cause generals to fall and presidents to rise, again without it where would you be?
Digging holes i suppose.
Its how we as people of thought deal with its comuppence, do we collectively win or lose, the battle for right and wrong.