Ismail Zaqout, 41, is a taxi driver whose lifeline has run dry. For years, his car was more than just transport, it was survival. “It was my only source of income,” he said, his only way to support his family of seven.
But today, his vehicle sits idle. The reason is not damage from Israel's war, it is a lack of motor oil.
Once a routine expense, oil has now become a luxury beyond the reach of many in Gaza. Prices have surged from 10 shekels ($3.32) a litre before the war to nearly 1,500 shekels today, if any can be found at all. For drivers such as Mr Zaqout, a simple oil change now costs about 9,000 shekels, an impossible amount. “I had to stop working,” he told The National.
Across Gaza, thousands of drivers face the same problem, their vehicles parked indefinitely. But the crisis extends far beyond private transport.
Matter of life and death
Inside Gaza’s hospitals, the shortage is slowly becoming a matter of life and death for patients. Mazen Al Arayeshi, director general of maintenance and engineering for the Palestinian Health Ministry, told The National that ambulances and critical medical equipment depend on regular oil changes to function. Without them, systems will begin to fail.
“In recent days, we were forced to shut down one of the main generators at Nasser Medical Complex,” he said. The hospital, one of the largest in Gaza, now operates under emergency conditions, running smaller generators at reduced capacity to conserve dwindling supplies. These measures, he added, come “at the expense of patient health and the quality of care".
Ambulances risk breaking down, life-saving equipment could stop, and with each passing day, the margin for failure shrinks.
Beyond health care, Gaza’s fragile economy is also grinding to a halt. Factories, bakeries and workshops, many already operating under extreme constraints, rely on generators and machinery that cannot function without oil. Ali Al Hayek, head of the Palestinian Businessmen Association, said the continued restriction on oil and spare parts was pushing those sectors towards collapse.
“Bakeries and food factories could stop within a short time,” he told The National, warning about the danger to the availability of basic goods. Public transport, too, is on the brink, as buses and service vehicles become increasingly difficult to maintain.
For many Gazans, electricity supply now depends on private generator operators, yet even they are struggling to stay in business.
In Gaza city’s Sheikh Ridwan neighbourhood, Ibrahim Muhareb oversees a small network of generators supplying power to homes and businesses. Two months ago, his company managed to provide electricity for more than 16 hours a day. Now, it has dropped to 11 and could fall further.
“The cost is unbearable,” he said. Each generator requires more than 30 litres of oil monthly, costing thousands of dollars. Despite charging high electricity rates, revenue no longer covers the soaring expenses of oil, fuel and repairs."
To keep running, Mr Muhareb and others resorted to desperate measures, recycling oil from broken machines. But those options have run out. Already, five of his generators have failed and cannot be repaired.
If supplies do not arrive soon, he said, electricity hours could drop to as low as seven a day, far below what households and businesses need to function.
The consequences ripple through every aspect of life. Shops close early. Small industries slow or stop production. Families struggle without reliable power. What began as a shortage of a basic mechanical fluid has evolved into a crisis affecting mobility, health care, food production and energy.
At its core, the issue is simple – without oil, machines stop. And in Gaza, when machines stop, so does life as people know it.
“We call for the immediate necessity of allowing the entry of all essential goods without exception and increasing the volume of goods entering the strip, including industrial and food oils and spare parts,” Mr Al Hayek added.
