Gas

Workers in India’s textile hub Surat are returning home after days without cooking gas, as an LPG crisis linked to Iran war disruptions halts supplies. Industries face shutdowns, while authorities invoke emergency measures to prioritise households.

March 20 (UPI) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Israel “acted alone” in striking Iran’s South Pars gas field, an attack that escalated the war in the Middle East and prompted President Donald Trump to declare that the U.S. ally would not target the site again.

Israel attacked the South Pars field on Wednesday. In retaliation, Iran targeted major Persian Gulf energy facilities of U.S. allies, causing damage to Qatar’s Ras Laffan Industrial City and the United Arab Emirates’ Bab gas field.

The tit-for-tat strikes have edged the region closer to all-out war while soaring the price of oil, leading Trump to state the United States had known nothing of Israel’s plans before it struck the South Pars gas field and to threaten Iran if it attacked Qatar again. He also said Israel would not attack Iranian energy infrastructure unless Iran attacked Qatar again.

Trump’s comments and his administration’s rationale for entering the war have come under scrutiny after reporting challenged his claim that Washington had no prior knowledge of the South Pars attack, while critics accused the United States of being lured into the war by Israel.

Speaking to reporters in English on Thursday, Netanyahu mostly backed Trump’s account, saying “Israel acted alone against the Asaluyeh gas compound,” using the name of the nearby Iranian port and industrial complex that is often used as a shorthand for the gas field.

He did not directly address whether Trump or the United States knew of the attack beforehand, but pivoted to state that further attacks would not occur, as the American president had ordered.

“President Trump asked us to hold off on future attacks, and we’re holding off,” he said.

The press conference was held following reporting, including by CNN, citing U.S. and Israeli officials who said the attack had been conducted in coordination with the United States.

It was also held as accusations mount that the United States was dragged into the war by Israel. After the United States launched initial attacks with Israel on Feb. 28, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that it was a preemptive strike to reduce U.S. casualties and deaths because they knew Israel was going to strike Iran and believed Tehran would retaliate against American forces.

The Trump administration has attempted to thwart the notion that Israel forced the United States into war, with officials repeatedly stating that Trump’s decision to attack was not influenced by others.

Netanyahu echoed this sentiment.

“Does anyone really think that someone can tell President Trump what to do? Come on,” he said. “President Trump always makes his decision on what he thinks is good for America, and may I add, I think what is also good for future generations.”

An Iranian missile struck an oil refinery in the Israel city of Haifa. The plant produces half of Israel’s domestic fuel supplies. Power was briefly disrupted before being restored, with no casualties reported. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said it targeted refineries and military sites in the attack.

Iran’s strike on Qatar’s Ras Laffan gas facility will cut an estimated 17% of the country’s Liquefied Natural Gas export capacity for up to five years, officials say. The damage is a major blow to the global energy market, which could disrupt supplies to Europe, Asia and beyond.

Almost exactly 10 years ago, Leonardo DiCaprio won a Best Actor Oscar (his first) for his performance in “The Revenant” as an early 19th century fur trapper who is injured in a bear attack, then by turns grudgingly kept alive, abandoned and left for dead by the avaricious hunting party he had been hired to lead.

In his acceptance speech at those 88th Academy Awards, DiCaprio first thanked the film’s cast and crew. He then pivoted quickly and forcefully to the environment. “The Revenant,” he said, was … “about man’s relationship to the natural world that we collectively felt in 2015, as the hottest year in recorded history.”

The rest of what he said is worth a big block quote; to read it today, the week after the 98th Academy, during which politics and policy both receded, is bracing.

“Our production needed to move to the southern tip of this planet just to find snow. Climate change is real, it is happening right now, it is the most urgent threat facing our entire species, and we need to work together and stop procrastinating. We need to support leaders around the world who do not speak for the big polluters, the big corporations, but who speak for all humanity, for the Indigenous people of the world, for the billions and billions of underprivileged people who will be most affected by this, for our children’s children, and for those people whose voices have been drowned out by the politics of greed. I thank you all for this award tonight. Let us not take this planet for granted. I do not take this award for granted.”

That year was something of a heady time for environmentalists. Barack Obama was in the middle of his second term as president of the U.S and though his climate and environmental policies were not especially progressive, in 2015 he did enact the Clean Power Plan, which had the stated goal of reducing carbon emissions locally, and “leading global efforts to address climate change” outside U.S. borders.

Further, just a couple of months after the 88th Academy Awards, the U.S. would become one the 196 parties to sign onto the Paris Agreement, an international treaty to reduce the rise of global temperatures, whose terms had been negotiated the previous fall.

Fast forward 10 years. Donald Trump withdrew from the Paris Agreement in 2020. Joe Biden rejoined in 2021. Trump withdrew again just a few months ago. And in this second go at the White House, the Trump Administration has done everything in its power to tighten the knots tethering the U.S. to fossil fuels. It has literally forced owners of coal plants in Colorado and Washington State that want to shut them down to keep them open. Trump has fought tooth and nail in court to suspend wind energy projects that are fully permitted, under contract and under construction across the eastern seaboard. And his administration has rolled backed numerous efforts to keep climate change in check, like the allowance of state-specific fuel economy standards and the landmark fossil-fuel endangerment finding of 2009.

Meanwhile, that global temperature record that DiCaprio mentioned in his acceptance speech in 2016 seems almost trifling compared to what has happened since. It’s been surpassed six times. According to data from the National Centers for Environmental Information, the three hottest years on record are 2024, 2023 and 2025.

At the 98th Academy Awards, DiCaprio was nominated again for Best Actor — his sixth in that category — this time for “One Battle After Another.” The film, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, won Best Picture. DiCaprio lost in his category to Michael B. Jordan, the lead of Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners,” so he didn’t have a chance to say anything about climate change.

But not a single one of the Oscar winners this year mentioned it.

Both “One Battle After Another” and “Sinners” were produced by Warner Brothers, which is about to be acquired by Paramount Skydance, which in turn is owned by David Ellison, the son of Larry Ellison, one the world’s wealthiest individuals and noted Trump supporter. Ellison the younger has already made decisions that have significantly defanged the climate coverage at CBS News — Paramount’s flagship news network — and it would not be shocking if CNN — part of the WB — is next.

Indeed, one of the defining characteristics of this show was its dearth of any language at the awards that could be considered political.

Instead of the fire we got from, say, Michael Moore in 2003, what we got was a sort of mea culpa from P.T. Anderson — who might be the definitional American Gen X director — in his acceptance speech for Best Adapted Screenplay:

“I wrote this movie for my kids to say sorry for the housekeeping mess that we left in this world we’re handing off to them. But also, with the encouragement that they will be the generation that hopefully brings us some common sense and decency.”

I harbor the same hopes, but it might require at least acknowledging the problems first.

More culture & enviro news

One thing that does give me some optimism is that the feted films themselves did a pretty good job acknowledging climate change. According to Good Energy, a consultancy group, of the 16 scripted features that were nominated for an Oscar and met the eligibility criteria, five passed the “climate reality check.” That’s pretty good!

Relevant especially for those facing the heat wave right now in L.A. and the rest of the southwest: a study published earlier this week in Lancet attempted to quantify how rising global temperatures will impact physical inactivity in different parts of the world. Chloé Farand summed it up for the Guardian, noting the researchers’ projection of 500,000 additional annual deaths due to inactivity by 2050.

Meanwhile, Libby Rainey at LAist wrote about how the city is preparing for the inevitable heat challenges that will accompany the World Cup games this coming summer.

This isn’t brand new — in fact, it references the reporting of my former colleague Sammy Roth — but Alexandra Tey over at the Nation has a nice roundup of sports fans protesting their teams’ financial ties to fossil fuel companies. It focuses on one of the most visible of these partnerships: Citi Field, where the New York Mets play, is named for Citi group, the world’s biggest lender to oil and gas companies.

A few last things in climate news this week

With gas prices skyrocketing due to the war in Iran, some Californians have been wondering why oil companies in the state can’t just start drilling more. My colleague Blanca Begert explains why it isn’t that simple.

The related big question is will the turmoil in the middle east push countries around the world to double down on renewable energy. In the New Yorker, Bill McKibben makes the case that this could be the moment that small clean tech — think solar panels, heat pumps, induction cooktops, etc — really takes off.

Finally, somehow, some 10 million tons of manure produced at California factory farms is unaccounted for. Seth Millstein, writing for Sentient, explains how lax regulation let farms dispose of 200 Titanics’ worth of animal waste without telling anyone where or how they did it.

This is the latest edition of Boiling Point, a newsletter about climate change and the environment in the American West. Sign up here to get it in your inbox. And listen to our Boiling Point podcast here.

Donald Trump said the US was unaware of Israel’s South Pars strike and warned Iran against targeting Qatar.

Qatar’s Foreign Ministry strongly condemns attack that caused “extensive damage” at the Ras Laffan complex.

Qatar’s Ministry of ⁠Interior says civil ⁠defence teams are responding to a fire at the country’s main gas facility after an Iranian attack.

In a statement on Wednesday, QatarEnergy said there was “extensive damage” following the “missile attacks” on Ras Laffan Industrial City.

“All personnel have been accounted for and no casualties have been reported at this time,” the world’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) producer added.

The announcements came hours after Iran threatened to attack oil and gas facilities across the Gulf region in retaliation for an Israeli attacks on its South Pars gasfield as the fallout from the United States-Israeli war on the country continues to escalate.

Iran’s warning was directed at Qatar’s Mesaieed Petrochemical Complex, Mesaieed Holding Company and Ras Laffan Refinery; Saudi Arabia’s Samref Refinery and Jubail Petrochemical Complex; and the United Arab Emirates’s Al Hosn Gas Field.

In a statement, Qatar’s Foreign Ministry strongly condemned “the brutal” Iranian targeting of Ras Laffan Industrial City.

“Qatar considers this assault a dangerous escalation, a flagrant violation of its sovereignty, and a direct threat to its national security,” it said.

On March 2, Qatar suspended LNG production following an attack on at its giant Ras Laffan facility, as well as on a water tank at a power plant in Mesaieed Industrial City.

March 17 (UPI) — U.S. gasoline prices have surged by 27% and diesel by 34% since the start of U.S. attacks on Iran last month, fuel costs reported Tuesday indicate.

AAA reported that the national average cost for a gallon of gas in the United States was $3.79 Tuesday morning. Diesel was $5.044 per gallon, topping the $5 threshold for the first time in three years, CNBC reported.

A year ago, those prices were $3.078 and $3.592, respectively. A month ago, they were $2.917 and $3.651.

Fuel prices have been on the rise globally since the United States and Israel launched attacks on Iran on Feb. 28 amid negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. The attacks, which killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, prompted Tehran to effectively close down the Strait of Hormuz by banning ships linked to the United States or Israel. About 20% of the world’s oil runs through the waterway that separates Iran and Oman.

Brent Crude, the benchmark price for oil worldwide, rose about 2% to $102 a barrel Tuesday, The New York Times reported. The West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark, rose to $95 a barrel.

Diesel prices are particularly tied to the U.S. economy, which depends on it for the transportation of goods via trucks, trains and barges. Recent surges in prices could have a cascading effect.

Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates, said Tuesday that trucking and rail companies have begun increasing their fuel surcharges in response to the fuel hikes.

“One should really be worried about higher diesel prices,” he said in a note published by CNBC.

President Donald Trump this week put pressure on other nations that rely on oil shipped through the Strait of Hormuz to join a coalition to police the transit route and reopen traffic.

Speaking aboard Air Force One on Sunday, Trump said the United States doesn’t need to be involved in reopening the Strait of Hormuz because little of its oil passes through the waterway. About 7% of the United States’ crude oil and condensate imports passed through the strait in the first half of last year, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said.

He said the United States was protecting it “almost like we do it for habit” and to help “some very good allies that we have in the Middle East.”

Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, said Monday, “until we see a meaningful resumption of oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz, upward pressure on fuel prices is likely to persist.”

SACRAMENTO — As gas prices surge in California and nationally due to the war in Iran, two Democrats running for California governor are calling for the state to temporarily suspend its fuel tax or ease refinery regulations in an effort to lower costs.

Standing in front of a gas pump in a video posted to social media, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan said the costs are “becoming an emergency for working families, and I think we ought to act like it.”

The moderate Democrat called on state lawmakers to suspend California’s gas tax, which at 61 cents per gallon is the highest in the nation.

Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa also called for an “immediate moratorium” on regulations that he blamed for “overburdening” California refineries and working families.

“These failed policies are not only hurting tens of millions of Californians, they are terrible for the environment because they have forced California to depend on imported foreign oil from the Middle East,” Villaraigosa said in a statement.

The cost of living in California, including the price at the pump, remains a pivotal issue for voters in the state, and has become central to the moderate-leaning campaigns of Mahan and Villaraigosa as they attempt to distinguish themselves in the tightly contested race for governor.

According to AAA, the average price for a gallon of regular gasoline in California on Monday was $5.52, the highest in the nation and more than 50 cents higher than any other state. The national average was $3.71, up from the previous month’s average of $2.92.

Gasoline prices in California are often among the highest in the country for a number of reasons, including environmental rules that require a unique blend of cleaner-burning fuel.

The state also relies mostly on crude oil imported from other countries including Brazil, Iraq and Guyana and processed at in-state refineries. In 2025, 61% of oil processed at California refineries was imported, compared with 23% that was produced in the state, according to data from the California Energy Commission.

A greater reliance on foreign oil has made California more susceptible to price spikes during global conflicts and other disruptions.

Republicans have long supported suspending the gas tax and cutting regulations in order to lower prices at the pump.

Steve Hilton, a GOP candidate for governor and former Fox News host, outlined a plan to lower California gas prices to $3 per gallon by slashing regulations including the low-carbon fuel standard, the rule that requires cleaner-burning gas in order to reduce tailpipe emissions.

The other major Republican in the race, Riverside Sheriff Chad Bianco, supports suspending the gas tax, according to his website.

The current price spike echoes 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine and disrupted global oil markets.

As prices eventually fell around the rest of the country that year, they remained high for months in California, leading Gov. Gavin Newsom to wage war against oil and gas companies. He accused them of price-gouging drivers and backed laws requiring companies to report their profit margins and keep a supply of fuel on hand to prevent shortages and price spikes.

The governor backed off his battle with the oil companies last year after two refineries announced plans to close. In September, he signed legislation to permit 2,000 new oil wells in Kern County, reflecting an acknowledgement that his war on oil companies threatened to send California’s gas market spiraling.

Republican state lawmakers in 2022 pushed for a temporary suspension of California’s excise tax on gasoline, arguing that it would provide immediate relief to California drivers. That effort was rebuffed by Newsom and Democratic lawmakers, but they later approved $9.5 billion in tax refunds to Californians, providing as much as $1,050 to families as financial relief from record-high gasoline prices and other rising costs.

In 2017, the Democratic-controlled Legislature passed Senate Bill 1, which then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law, levying the state’s first gas tax increase in 23 years to fix California’s roads and bridges in disrepair. Under the law, the tax increases each year on July 1 based on the growth in the California Consumer Price Index.

California voters remain conflicted on the state’s regulation of the oil industry, according to an August survey by the Public Policy Institute of California. It found that more than 60% of adults support goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and generate electricity from renewable energy sources.

But majorities also said the costs of gasoline and utility bills is a major problem for them personally, according to the poll.

Mahan and Villaraigosa are the only two Democrats who have publicly called to roll back regulations on the state’s oil and gas market, illustrating the political murkiness at the nexus of California’s climate and affordability challenges.

Still, Democratic lawmakers – who hold supermajorities in the state Senate and Assembly – continue to shut down proposals to pause the gas tax, arguing that the state would lose out on much-needed money for roads.

“If anyone has a proposal about how to backfill (transportation) revenues, I’m up for that conversation, but so far, it’s just a bulls— political talking point,” said Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris (D-Irvine).

Petrie-Norris chairs the Assembly Utilities and Energy Committee and has helped lead legislative efforts to stabilize California’s fuels market without retreating from goals to achieve carbon neutrality.

”When I ask people, ‘Do you want affordable gas, clean air or safe roads?’ they say yes. So they want us to do all three of these things,” she said. “We’ve got to be honest with Californians about trade-offs so that we can have real conversations.”

Mahan pushed back on the importance of collecting gas tax revenue.

“The truth is we have the highest taxes in the country and a $350-billion budget, and we ought to be able to pave our roads and enable working families to put food on the table,” he said in an interview. “I just reject the notion that the sky is going to fall if we provide temporary relief to working families who are being pushed to the brink by a war that they didn’t ask for.”

The San José mayor said the state should suspend the fuel tax “for the duration of the war” in Iran “or as long as gas prices are over $5 a gallon” in the state. He also called for “massive regulatory overhaul that brings down costs across the board,” including rules on refineries.

If elected governor, Villaraigosa said he would “reform and overhaul” the California Air Resources Board, which enacts many of the state’s environmental laws — including the low carbon fuel standard and cap-and-invest program.

“We can no longer allow bureaucrats who live in a bubble — with no accountability for the harm they are causing our economy and our people — to have so much power over the lives of every Californian,” Villaraigosa said in a statement.

Erin Wagner lives in the Chicago suburbs but visits two bald eagles in Southern California’s Big Bear Valley nearly every day.

At work, the 41-year-old often plays a livestream featuring Jackie and Shadow on one of her monitors — a respite when she needs a break.

The avian power couple follows her home, keeping her company as she cooks dinner.

“We live in such a busy world, and things are always being thrown at our face, so sometimes it’s nice to just have a gentle reminder of nature and what else is out there in the world,” Wagner told me last week.

She is just one of many devoted fans; the eagles had the highest view count of any year-round nature livestream active on YouTube between last fall and this spring, said Rebecca Mauldin, an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Arlington who studies social connectedness.

While the eagles’ following is singular, it’s part of a broader trend: surging interest in webcams that broadcast nature, unadulterated, minute by minute, in all its messy glory.

The number of 24/7 livestreams created per year swelled by about 3,000% between 2019 and 2025, Mauldin’s data show.

Jackie and Shadow’s livestream exemplifies “Slow TV,” a genre that began with a 2009 Norwegian broadcast of a seven-hour train trip. It took off, with other marathon programs featuring chopping firewood and knitting.

Nature looms large in the format. Millions tune into Sweden’s live coverage of an annual moose migration, and the same goes for a seasonal broadcast of bears chowing down on salmon in Alaska.

The appeal makes intuitive sense. In a world of quick camera cuts, sound bites and troubling headlines, Mother Nature’s rhythms can be a salve. And with many of us wound up in concrete urbanity, the livestreams offer instant transportation to the wild.

Following Jackie and Shadow takes patience. If they’re not hanging out at the nest, it’s a waiting game until they come back. Even when they’re there, there may not be much going on.

Entertainment “can be very artificial, it can be very packaged, and it can be very short,” said Jenny Voisard, media manager for Friends of Big Bear Valley, the nonprofit that operates the cameras broadcasting the eagles. “This is long and slow and calm.”

Yet nature is unpredictable, another draw for viewers. This nesting season alone has brought plenty of drama, from the lovebirds losing their eggs to ravens to laying more not long after. Last week, I wrote about the couple’s shocking origin — it involves a love triangle! — and their rise to reality stardom.

Last year, Jackie and Shadow raised two chicks that went on to fledge: Sunny and Gizmo

(Friends of Big Bear Valley)

Research backs the vibes. Those who watch nature livestreams — from platypi to osprey — report a host of benefits, from uplifted mood to relaxation, said Mauldin, citing a literature review she-coauthored.

Others get jazzed about learning about a particular species, she said.

There may be limitations, though.

In terms of connecting to nature, “I lean toward the effect is stronger if you’re actually outdoors, or, you know, you’ve got a little ant crawling on your finger and watching it,” Mauldin said.

She highlighted another dimension I didn’t think of: Many “talk about how they’re developing strong online relationships, and you can see it in the chats or in the comments.”

Someone might comment that they had a bad day and are glad to be watching their favorite birds again, and another viewer will rally to support them. Then there are people who watch on their own, but gab about it later with a friend.

Friends of Big Bear Valley, with 1.2 million followers on Facebook, offers more than just updates on the eagles. It’s a buzzing community center where fans can share their thoughts and engage with one another.

Animals may also get something out of being watched: protection.

The eagle cam, for example, “sort of stokes the public’s imagination and interest in conservation,” said Thomas Leeman, deputy chief of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s migratory bird program in the Pacific Southwest. “They start to really care about whichever particular birds that they’re watching.”

Wagner, of Chicago, said her husband and 14-year-old son sometimes give her a hard time about how invested she is in Jackie and Shadow.

But her cat, Oscar, shares her fascination.

She recently posted a photo of the feline on Jackie and Shadow’s Facebook — looking intently at a TV where an eagle hunkered down on the nest.

“My new cat is just as obsessed as all of us,” she wrote.

More recent wildlife news

Big Bear’s celeb eagles continue to keep us on our toes. Jackie recently vanished from the nest for nearly 24 hours, sending fans into a panic — but eventually reunited with her eggs and mate, reports USA Today’s Michelle Del Rey.

While we’re on the subject of avian kind: Last week, I wrote about a pair of condors that appear to be nesting in Northern California, something not seen for a century. The Yurok Tribe is leading the effort to bring the large, endangered vultures back to their historic homeland in Humboldt and Del Norte counties.

As conservationists celebrate that win, the story for birds nationwide is not so rosy. A recent study found that North America is rapidly losing birds, and the loss is accelerating, largely due to intensive agriculture and warming temperatures, writes the Associated Press’ Seth Borenstein.

A few last things in climate news

Trump’s war on Iran has disrupted global oil and gas supplies. The conflict has kept ships that carry millions of barrels of oil a day stranded in the Persian Gulf, and key Middle East facilities have sustained damage, reports the Associated Press.

Oil prices have spiked, and Californians are paying the highest price at the pump in the nation. As my colleague Iris Kwok explains, that’s due to the state’s higher taxes and stricter requirements for cleaner, more expensive gas that pollutes.

Sticker shock at gas stations is expected to spur more Americans to consider hybrid or electric vehicles, according to fellow Times staffers Caroline Petrow-Cohen and Blanca Begert.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Justice has released a legal opinion that sets the stage to approve a controversial oil operation off the Santa Barbara County coast, The Times’ Grace Toohey reports.

This is the latest edition of Boiling Point, a newsletter about climate change and the environment in the American West. Sign up here to get it in your inbox. And listen to our Boiling Point podcast here.

For more wildlife and outdoors news, follow Lila Seidman at @lilaseidman.bsky.social on Bluesky and @lila_seidman on X.

Gaza City, the Gaza Strip – Shortly before the call to sunset prayer, Islam Dardouna stretches her hand towards a pot hanging over a makeshift stove fashioned from a battered metal can, with scraps of paper and pieces of wood feeding the fire beneath it.

Then she pauses. She turns her face away from the rising tongues of smoke. Her face stained with a thin layer of soot and her clothes steeped in the lingering smell of fumes, she takes a deep breath but does not immediately lift the lid.

In her right hand, Dardouna holds an asthma inhaler as though it were a ladle or tongs. With her other hand, she tries to prepare food for her three children.

“I can no longer tolerate the fire at all,” the 34-year-old says in a strained voice as she raises the inhaler to her mouth.

“We heat water on it, cook on it … everything. It completely destroyed my health,” she said, pointing to her chest.

Dardouna has been displaced from Jabalia in northern Gaza since the start of Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in the territory in October 2023.

She now lives with her husband – 37-year-old Muath Dardouna – and their children in Sheikh Ajleen, west of Gaza City.

A year and a half ago, their home was destroyed. Since then, the family has moved from place to place until they eventually settled in this camp alongside other displaced families.

Everything changed after the war began. But for Dardouna, having to cook daily over an open fire in the face of cooking gas and fuel ranks among the worst.

“Our entire life now is a struggle, searching for wood and things we never imagined we would need one day,” she says. “There is no cooking gas and no gas cylinders. We lost all of that during displacement.”

What makes the situation even harder is that she suffers from asthma and chronic chest allergies, conditions she says began during Israel’s 2008 war on Gaza when she inhaled the smoke of a phosphorus bomb that dropped on her house. Her situation improved over the years, but has dramatically worsened during the current war.

“I developed airway obstruction, and recently there were masses found in my lungs,” said Dardouna, who in January was hospitalised for six days after suffering from oxygen shortage.

“The doctors prescribed an oxygen cylinder for me,” she says, quietly. “But unfortunately, I cannot afford it.”

A prolonged shortage

Like so many others across Gaza, Dardouna is struggling amid a prolonged shortage of cooking gas and fuel that has persisted since the start of the war.

Supplies have remained severely limited even after a “ceasefire” came into effect in October that included provisions allowing the entry of fuel and essential goods into the territory.

However, the quantities that have entered since then remain far below the population’s actual needs, according to official sources in Gaza and United Nations agencies.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says the availability of cooking gas in Gaza remains “critically constrained”, with the limited quantities entering the territory covering less than three percent of what is required.

As a result, many families have been forced to rely on alternative and often hazardous cooking methods.

UN data indicates that about 54.5 percent of households rely on firewood for cooking, roughly 43 percent burn waste or plastic, and only around 1.5 percent are able to cook with gas.

Humanitarian groups warn that such unsafe alternatives endanger people’s health and the environment due to prolonged exposure to smoke and toxic fumes produced by burning plastic and other waste.

Amid these conditions, cooking over open fires made from wood, scrap materials or plastic has become a daily reality across displacement camps and neighbourhoods throughout Gaza.

The crisis has intensified during the Muslim holy month Ramadan, when families must prepare both suhoor meals before their daily fast and iftar meals afterwards.

Firewood has become expensive, requiring a daily budget. Lighting the fire before dawn is also often difficult due to the lack of lighting and unfavourable weather conditions, so the family often skips the pre-dawn meal entirely.

“Today, for example, it’s raining and windy. I couldn’t light the fire,” said Darduna’s husband, Muath, who is also helping out with the daily cooking.

“Even when we break our fast, we wish we could drink a cup of tea or coffee afterwards, but we can’t, because lighting the fire again is another struggle.”

A former psychosocial support worker for children, Muath says it pains him to see his children fasting without suhoor.

“Every detail of our lives is literally suffering,” he says. “Fetching water is suffering. Cooking is suffering. Even going to the bathroom is suffering. We are truly exhausted,” he added.

“Our lives are covered in soot,” Muath says, pointing to the black smoke stains left by the fire.

He describes gas as “one of our dreams”, recalling how “it felt like Eid day” when the family got a gas cylinder a few months ago. “But we don’t even have the stove to use it, and many families are like us,” he said.

“We are living on the edge of nothing. Displacement and war stripped us of everything,” he adds. “We are willing to live with the simplest rights in tents. But there is no heating, no gas, no lighting. It feels like we are living in open graves on Earth.”

Serious implications

In a statement on Wednesday, the General Petroleum Authority in Gaza warned of the “catastrophic and dangerous consequences of the continued halt in cooking gas supplies” to the territory, stressing that the crisis “directly affects the lives of more than two million residents” amid already dire humanitarian conditions.

The authority said Gaza had already been facing a shortfall of about 70 percent of its actual gas needs compared with the quantities that entered after the “ceasefire” announcement.

It added that the “complete suspension of gas supplies places the Gaza Strip before a looming disaster that threatens food and health security”, particularly during Ramadan.

The authority also said that preventing gas from entering the enclave constitutes a “clear violation of the ceasefire understandings”, calling on mediators and international actors to intervene urgently to ensure the regular flow of cooking gas into Gaza.

Across Gaza, many families now rely on ready-made meals from aid distributions and charity kitchens because of economic collapse and the difficulty of cooking.

“Even when food arrives ready hours before iftar,” Muath says, “heating it becomes another problem.”

The frustration of daily survival pushes Muath to the brink.

“As a father now, I cannot even provide the most basic things,” he says. “Imagine my son simply wants a cup of tea … even a little wind can stop me from making it.”

‘The fire suffocates you’

In a nearby tent, Amani Aed al-Bashleqi, 26, sits watching food being cooked over an open fire for iftar while her husband stirs the pot.

She said cooking on fire makes food taste “flavourless” – not because the taste changes, but because “exhaustion and suffering have become part of every bite”.

“We start cooking early so we can finish by iftar, and after breaking the fast, my husband and I are completely exhausted and covered in soot.”

Like Dardouna, al-Bashleqi says the smoke causes severe headaches and health problems.

“The fire suffocates you. All the women in the camp suffer health problems from cooking on fire,” she says. “But we have no choice.”

She has a seven-month-old baby, and her biggest worry is boiling water for his milk.

“Sometimes I boil water and keep it in a borrowed thermos, but I don’t always have one,” she says. “And sometimes when he wakes up at night, I mix the milk with water without boiling it, even though I know that’s not healthy. But what can I do?”

Nearby, Iman Junaid, 34, displaced from Jabalia to western Gaza City, sits with her husband Jihad, 36, in front of the fire preparing food.

Junaid blows on the flames while she pushes an empty plastic oil bottle under the fire.

Behind them, bags full of plastic bottles are piled up. The family collected them to fuel the fire because cooking gas has been unavailable for months.

A mother of six, Junaid says she knows the health dangers of burning plastic, but has “no other choice”.

“My little daughter is one year old, and her chest always hurts because she inhales the smoke,” she says. “Our life is collecting and burning plastic and nylon.”

“With the price of wood rising, we now wish we could even find wood. Gas has become almost impossible … we’ve forgotten it.”

She said there were many promises that gas would enter Gaza after the “ceasefire”, but “nothing happened”.

For Dardounah, the solution is not simply bringing cooking gas into Gaza. “What we need is for life to become possible again,” she says.

“Let gas enter. Let goods enter at reasonable prices. Let there be basic necessities for a normal life.”