Electricity in Gaza: Another Victim of Israeli 'Summer Rains'

As I walked into one of the largest food processing plants in the central Gaza Strip, the first thing I noticed were two workers sitting idle in the ice-cream production area of the plant. I arrived during working hours, but all the machines were completely stopped. The factory was silent, the silence was overwhelming.

The workers, Ibrahim and Hassan, were sitting idle in a corner - not because there is no desire in Gaza for ice cream, but because the Al-Awda factory, for which both workers work, is no longer able to produce ice cream, due to the electricity outages in the Gaza Strip.

Al-Awda's owner, businessman Mohammad Altelbani, from Deir Al-Balah city in central Gaza, says that shops and groceries this summer have stopped purchasing ice-cream products due to their inability to maintain refrigeration necessary for frozen products. With frequent electricity outages, keeping ice cream frozen is virtually impossible.

At any rate, Palestinians in Gaza, who have become used to seeing blood and destruction in the streets over the past two months, can certainly live without ice-cream for the rest of such a "rainy summer" (referring the name of the ongoing Israeli military invasion of Gaza is known as "Operation Summer Rains").

"We lose $1000 every day. You know why? Because of the power outage, we're depending on benzene gas-powered electrdy jovenes and adultos groups up and running and I am going to contiune on with that. That want me to also give some talks about micro enterprise and during my site visit they formed a group of ninos, mostly girls, that want to learn how to read and dance, a good start for a group when they start tot get a little older. I think my first job with them is goign to take a census and there is also a divide in the neighborhood that they want to fix.

Overall I will have a lot of work and am looking forward to doing it all. That said there is more work than can be done by one person. Manos Unidas is looking to export some of their artisan products and I am going to help them out with a website, so it may be the case that anyone can offer a little support through the purchase of a trinket or two made by hand by youth in need, not by a factory and then pawned on the side of the road. Hope all is well, keep in touch. Sorry for any spelling errors, I don´t have spell check and forgot how to do it myself....
pelling errors, I don´t have spell check and forgot how to do it myself....