In Gaza, Dinner Depends on a Lighter

In Gaza City, Rabab Deifallah presses a battered lighter repeatedly inside her tent, trying to ignite wood in a stove. The 46-year-old mother of five uses that fire to bake bread, cook food, heat water and make tea. Her son has repaired the lighter several times because replacements have become scarce and prohibitively expensive during the war.

Before the war, Deifallah recalls buying three lighters for one shekel, about 33 cents. She says a new one can now cost between $27 and $33, while the latest repair to hers cost $12. That creates a brutally practical checkout decision: buy the means to light a stove, or buy flour to put in it.

The market price still understates the shortage. When Deifallah cannot find a lighter, her family may eat cold food or wait for a neighbor to establish a fire. She sometimes carries cardboard to a nearby flame and brings the burning edge home. At other times, she asks to use a neighbor’s oven. Each workaround requires time, cooperation and the risk that a small flame will die in transit.

A disposable object has become a household utility. The change is not mystical. Cooking gas is scarce, fuel prices have soared and firewood has become essential, so the ignition point now governs everything downstream. Food can be present. A stove can be built. Someone must still make the first spark.

That task expands into maintenance work. Families preserve failing lighters, locate repairers, ration each use and coordinate with neighboring tents. A shared lighter lowers the cash cost for several households, but it also creates a schedule: one family waits while another cooks, and someone must carry the tool or the flame between them.

Hasnaa Mansour, a displaced mother of six from Jabalia refugee camp, also keeps repairing her lighter because a replacement is beyond her means. She bakes and sells food after her husband’s tailoring work declined. For her household, ignition supports both dinner and income. A failed lighter can interrupt the meal and the small business meant to pay for the next one.

No purchasing tip solves a shortage produced by war and deprivation. The useful distinction is between the lighter’s price and the cost of going without it. One appears at the point of sale. The other is collected from families in cold food, delayed bread, repeated repairs and hours spent borrowing fire.