A family of six was killed in the Gaza Strip on Thursday when their house caught fire from a burning candle during a power outage.

The mother of Palestinian Hazem Idheer holds a picture of her grandchildren in the Idheer family house where six Palestinian family members were killed in an accidental fire including 2 parents and 4 children in Gaza City, Thursday, Jan. 31, 2013. (AP Photo/Adel Hana)
Hazem Mahmud Dahier, 32, his wife Samar, 30, and their four small children, 4-month-old Qamar, 3-year-old Farah, 5-year-old Nabil, and 6-year-old Mahmud, all burned to death.
Last April, three small children were killed under similar circumstances. Their mother, Nehad Bashir, lit a candle in the children’s bedroom during a power cut. Hours later, her daughters, six-year-old Nadine and five-year-old Farah, and her son, four-year-old Sabri, were burned to death.
Earlier this month, four children were badly injured in a Gaza house fire, also caused by candles during a blackout.
In the US, we typically light candles in our homes because they smell nice and sometimes even keep mosquitos during the summertime. In Gaza, Palestinians light candles so they can see when the electricity goes out at night. Why? Because the Israeli imposed blockade, enforced with the help from the United States and Egypt, prevents an adequate amount of fuel from entering the coastal enclave. The blockade, which amounts to collective punishment of the 1.7 million residents trapped in Gaza, also forbids the entry of much-needed equipment for the maintenance and repair of Gaza’s electricity infrastructure, which has sustained heavy damage from successive Israeli bombings over the years.
Consequently, at any given time, one third of Gaza’s residents have no electricity. In fact, scheduled power cuts leave each household without electricity for at least eight hours a day, though sometimes the cuts last as long as 16 hours.
Some cope by using back-up generators, but they’re expensive and out of reach for most of Gaza’s residents who suffer from unimaginable poverty (thanks to the blockade). Even for those who can afford it, a generator doesn’t guarantee safety because a single short circuit could cause an explosion
In this Al Jazeera news report, Nadim Baba interviews a Palestinian woman whose house has burned down. She says she lit a candle one dark morning to get her kids ready for school during a power cut. But she forgot to put it out. Her house caught fire and her four-year-old son was killed.
The power crisis is so severe in Gaza that even hospitals aren’t immune, “put[ing] at risk the lives of cardiac and dialysis patients and babies in incubators,” says Ashraf Mashharawi.
Last year, a five-month-old infant in Gaza died when the back up generator running his respirator during a blackout ran out of fuel.
During Hurricane Sandy, Americans were collectively horrified when NYU hospital lost power and had to evacuate hundreds of patients, including 20 babies in neonatal intensive care. Imagine if that were to happen all the time. It would be unacceptable. So why do we sit idly by as Gaza’s sick are forced to endure such hardship?
Gaza’s residents don’t place all the blame for power cuts on Israel. They also blame the Hamas authorities who they say aren’t doing enough to solve the electricity crisis.
In September, three-year-old Fathi Baghdadi was burned to death when his house caught on fire from a lit candle during a blackout. His little sister, one and a half year old Tala, died a week later from her burns. Fathi’s death sparked a protest of some 500 people who called for the overthrow of Hamas. The child’s father, a civil guard at the Religious Affairs Ministry, said that he was forced to use candles during the blackouts because he could not afford to purchase a generator on his meager Hamas salary of $318 a month.
Still, I’m not sure what Hamas can do since they have no control over what comes in and out of Gaza, aside from the tunnels. Then again, it’s not really my place to judge the local government who may indeed be exacerbating the situation. But I am a part of the international community that allows Israel to enforce the illegal blockade of Gaza with impunity, a crime we are all complicit in whether we agree with it or not.
But don’t expect to hear that in the western media, which has placed the blame squarely on a candle and the evil Hamas. Pay no attention to the Israel behind the curtain.

A Palestinian boy mourns during the funeral of six members of the Dheir family who were killed after a fire swept through their house in Gaza City on January 31, 2013. MAHMUD HAMS/AFP/Getty Images
When will this blockade and wall building and other atrocities be stopped by the international community ?~!
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