Gaza’s infrastructure has suffered a devastating blow over the past year.

What once worked under pressure has been pushed to breaking point. Electricity networks, water systems, hospitals, roads and municipal services are systematically damaged or severely disrupted, and daily life is reduced to survival.

It’s not uncommon for families to plan their day around the sound of a generator, if fuel is available. Parents and children queue for hours for a few liters of unsafe water or a packet of bread.

Hospitals operate in near darkness, with doctors using mobile phone lighting to perform life-saving surgeries. Streets that once carried children to school were reduced to rubble.

The reality in Gaza is always cruel

Life in Gaza has never been easy, even in moments labeled “normal” by the outside world.

For most people, life is full of uncertainty. You learn not to plan too far ahead, because peace is fragile and always temporary.

There were days when there was electricity, the streets felt quieter, and families allowed themselves a sense of relief, but everyone knew that feeling could disappear at any moment.

Gaza’s infrastructure reflects this. It was vulnerable long before the devastation caused by Israel’s recent genocidal war.

Decades of illegal Israeli blockades, repeated military attacks and severe restrictions on building materials mean the system is always in need of tinkering, always operating on borrowed time. Nothing has really recovered.

One of the most obvious losses is electricity. Everywhere in the Gaza Strip, darkness is no exception. Our only power plant has been severely damaged and shut down by fuel shortages; nearly 80% of electricity transmission has been disrupted.

For families, this loss is felt in small, yet relentless ways. One mother charges her phone every time her neighbor’s generator briefly hums, knowing it may be her only chance to connect with her family.

Children do their homework by candlelight (if available). Refrigerators sit unused and food spoils.

Access to water has also deteriorated dramatically. Israeli bombings damaged wells, desalination plants and pumping stations. Without electricity or fuel, clean water cannot be extracted or distributed.

In the course of our coverage of Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, we documented families queuing with plastic containers to wait for water trucks that may or may not arrive. When they do, the water often takes on a salty or metallic smell that’s sharp and unfamiliar.

Many people have no choice but to drink it. Children can become sick with stomach infections. The rash spreads. Laundry became a luxury.

Cumulative effect: paralysis

Hospitals that were once overwhelmed but still functioning are now operating in crisis mode. During my fieldwork over the past month, I visited many health facilities that were damaged or forced to cease services entirely.

Those that are still functioning face severe shortages of medicines, equipment, electricity and personnel.

I remember the depressing feeling I felt after visiting two intensive care units in Gaza City and in the heart of the Gaza Strip.

Both were overcrowded and forced to put two patients on one bed.

Dialysis machines operate under the constant threat of power outages, and operating rooms are often plunged into darkness during procedures.

Most harshly, medical teams are often forced to make impossible decisions about who receives care and who must wait.

Beyond health and utilities, the destruction of roads, public facilities and municipal infrastructure has also divided Gaza from within: rubble-filled streets, sewage-flooded roads, slow ambulance and aid deliveries.

Garbage collection has largely stopped, allowing the disease to spread. Repeated damage to telecommunications infrastructure has left many homes isolated and people cut off from emergency services and the outside world.

Israel’s intensive bombing campaign has a cumulative effect – deliberately carried out with the aim of paralyzing daily life – because infrastructure systems are interdependent.

Without electricity, water cannot be pumped. Without fuel, hospitals cannot function. Without roads, aid cannot reach those in need.

Each collapse accelerates the next one and creates new and difficult living conditions.

As 2025 approaches, Gaza’s entire infrastructure no longer supports normal life; it is barely surviving.

Talking about rebuilding means not just rebuilding buildings, but restoring the systems that allow people to live with dignity: safe water, reliable electricity, functioning hospitals and basic public services.

Until then, civilians in Gaza will continue to suffer the consequences for another year that shake the foundations of their daily lives.