Repairing torn banknotes or making fuel from plastic: The new trades for survival in a besieged Gaza

On the outskirts of Khan Younis, beneath blackened adobe walls, 22-year-old Abdel Rahman Asfour balances long metal pipes, carrying heavy drums to his companions. Beneath these pipes, a primitive fire burns for 12 hours, slowly melting nearly a ton of crushed plastic into a sticky yellow substance. This viscous concoction is then piped into barrels, cooled using water pipes, and finally transformed, through trial and error, into precious drops of homemade fuel.

“We transport 900 kilos of this material by hand, without motors or pumps; we don’t have the necessary equipment to do it any other way,” says Asfour, father of a boy named Nahid. His team works four-hour shifts in scorching heat, sealing the iron pipe with thick bolts and feeding the fire with wood to obtain a kind of gasoline or diesel.

His boss, Mohamed al-Aqqad, 47, watches the process from a safe distance. Months ago, his workshop was burned to the ground by an explosion caused by a cooking gas leak from a secondary pipeline; a mistake they’ve since corrected by separating the gas and fuel lines. Now, as the first trickles of gas shoot upward, Al-Aqqad’s face lights up with a smile. “It’s proof it’s working,” he explains as he prepares to collect the liquid fuels: first the gasoline and then the diesel, each evaluated for its color, smell, texture, and even how it burns in a motorcycle engine.

Since early March, Israel has not allowed the entry of any supplies for Gaza’s 2.1 million inhabitants, a siege that has caused extreme shortages and driven up the prices of those items still available. On Monday, for the first time in more than two months, Israel announced that it had authorized the passage of at least five trucks carrying humanitarian aid, under international pressure, primarily from its main ally, the United States. This is a paltry amount of aid given the magnitude of the requirements. Faced with this bleak outlook, Gazans have resorted to extreme improvisation in recent months: inventing jobs that didn’t exist before and reviving others that had practically disappeared to create a subsistence economy.

What we do is help people survive, keep the water wells and old trucks running"

Mohamed al-Aqqad, producer of homemade fuel

“These new jobs aren’t just a product of necessity,” Al-Aqqad asserts. “They’re a way of hanging on, a way of saying we’re not throwing in the towel.” For this father of seven, this tough trade is both a means of subsistence and a necessity. “The siege has left us no other option,” he says. Previously, he worked to resolve tribal disputes; now he risks his life and those of his workers to produce the fuel the territory can no longer import. “It’s not of the same quality, of course. Some engines break down, but repairing them costs much less than paying the black market price for Israeli or Egyptian fuel.”

A ton of shredded plastic costs him about $2,000, and a ton of firewood another $1,000: a significant investment to produce only about 700 liters of fuel, 200 liters of which are gasoline, which he then sells for $20 a liter (compared to $60 for commercial fuel). Diesel sells for $6 a liter, roughly half the price they ask for the scarce foreign fuel still available in the Strip.

“It’s an act of patriotism,” Al-Aqqad concludes. “What we do is help people survive, keep the water wells and old trucks running.” However, while he proudly says he employs 10 men and supplies hundreds of customers, he laments the ineffectiveness of this method: without the proper equipment, they can’t capture the gas byproducts or extract industrial solvents, which are lost in the process.

The man who repairs lighters

In the center of Khan Younis, 50-year-old Wael Barbakh leans over a table piled high with small springs, wheels, and nozzles. This father of eight repairs lighters, a trade unthinkable before the war, when a new one cost just 20 cents. Now, with imports blocked, a lighter sells for over $12, so it’s worthwhile to offer a repair service for just $1.

“I used to work in construction in Israel,” says Barbakh, his face lined with fatigue. Before the outbreak of this war in October 2023, several dozen Gazans had received permission to work in Israel, often on construction sites, as bricklayers, or on farms near the Strip. “When my savings ran out, I turned to this. People need fires — for cooking, for light... for everything,” he adds.

He usually fixes about 20 lighters a day using parts from broken ones. He sometimes repairs them for free for poorer customers. “We’re all in the same boat,” he adds. “I’ve had to move more than six times myself. I’ve lost everything: my house, my money, even the most basic things.”

In the past 19 months, at least 53,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip, according to figures from the local Health Ministry, which the UN uses as a reference.

Despite the terrible circumstances they face, Barbakh says he feels fortunate to be able to earn some money to feed his family with this work. “Demand is highest during periods when humanitarian aid isn’t coming in, while when border crossings are open and goods are allowed to enter, prices for lighters can drop to $5 each,” he explains. “Never in my life did I imagine I’d be repairing lighters, and that they would become such a rare and essential commodity.”

Repairing banknotes, another trade born out of necessity

A few blocks away, 35-year-old Badr Sharab leans over a counter and carefully glues torn 20-shekel banknotes together, touching up their faded colors with water-based paints. His customers — three of them queued around his table — need these mends to keep their battered cash in circulation. Banks in Gaza have been closed for months, and Israel hasn’t allowed new banknotes into the Strip since the outbreak of the war, nor has it removed damaged ones, so the local population has to make do with their tattered currency.

Sharab, a father of three, used to sell blocks of ice. Now he restores banknotes, charging between 20 and 80 cents per bill. He only accepts payment once the repaired banknotes have been tested and accepted on the market.

“I feel an immense responsibility. If the banknotes I fix don’t work, people lose their money; and right now, every shekel counts for them,” he explains. On a typical day, he handles more than 100 bills. Most are 20-shekel, although sometimes there are higher denominations from older issues, and merchants are reluctant to accept them unless they are pristine.

“I’m not worried that Israel might bring back new banknotes,” Sharab says, carefully brushing a bill. “For now, I’m doing what I can to help people keep their money.”

I feel an immense responsibility. If the banknotes I fix don’t work, people lose their money; and right now, every shekel counts for them"

Badr Sharab, repairer of damaged banknotes

Among those waiting to be served by Sharab is 62-year-old Maha Al-Muzayyen, clutching a wad of crumbled banknotes that no shopkeeper will accept anymore. This mother of seven has seen her entire life transformed and, like the rest of the Strip’s residents, clings to these emergency solutions. “We cook and bake with firewood, not gas. We no longer live in houses, but in tents. We use donkey carts as a means of transportation. We connect solar panels without batteries, only with cables, because we can’t afford anything else.”

Al-Muzayyen’s voice trembles. “I never imagined the day would come when we would be forced to repair paper money just to buy a little soap,” she laments. “But this is Gaza: we invent ways to survive. We just ask to be able to live, to be given a chance, instead of being pushed toward death.”

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