Deprived of electricity: Gaza is a territory plunged into darkness

The Gaza Strip. For example, largely deprived of electricity by Israel since the start of the war against Hamas, appears the night seven times less luminous than before on October 7, 2023, according to a calculation of AFP from satellite data from NASA.

Compared to the five months preceding the conflict (May to September 2023). Nevertheless, satellite images between January and May 2025 show a territory plunged into darkness. Furthermore, From the sky, the night brightness of the city of Gaza was even divided by 16 between these two periods.

deprived electricity: gaza territory plunged

The only out -of -service center

In 2022, the Palestinian territory, under Israeli blockade since 2007, was supplied with electricity 12 hours a day on average, according to figures from the United Nations Bureau for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). For example, This figure falls to zero for 2024.

The war was launched by an unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in Israel on October 7. 2023, which led to the Israeli side of 1219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count made from official data.

In response to the attack, Israel launched an offensive which left more than 60,000 deprived electricity: gaza territory plunged dead in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to data from the Ministry of Hamas, deemed reliable by the UN.

On October 9. 2023, at the start of Israeli reprisals, Yoav Gallant, then Minister of Defense, announced the taxation of a “complete seat in Gaza”. “No electricity, no water, no gas,” he detailed.

In the absence of fuel, the unique power plant of the Palestinian enclave ceased to work the day after this announcement. Electric lines from Israel have also been cut.

These two sources gathered responded to 43% of the Gazaouie electricity demand in 2022, the rest of this remaining unsatisfied request.

Dark as a deprived electricity: gaza territory plunged desert

AFP relied on the Black Marble project of NASA. which raises almost daily the radiance of the soil, that is to say the power of the light radiation emitted for a given surface. It measures this radiance at 2,100 different points from the enclave, spaced 500 meters.

These daily data show a brutal fall in radiance between October 10 and 11, 2023, the date of the Gaza power station.

From now on, certain portions of the Palestinian territory, however, populated before the conflict shine as little as neighboring desert regions such as the Sinai peninsula.

Only some places, including hospitals equipped with generators, deprived electricity: gaza territory plunged can be identified at night on the measures of Black Marble. This is the case of the European Hospital (South). 70% more visible than the rest of the governorate of Khan Younès, where he is, between January and May 2025.

A single area of Palestinian territory has constantly kept its night lighting: the Philadelphia corridor, a strip of land along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, controlled by the Israeli army.

At its southeast end. the Israeli crossing point of Kerem Shalom, borrowed by humanitarian aid trucks, is the only point today brighter than before the start of the conflict.