Caught in a Power Struggle

GAZA CITY — In the course of his daily rounds, Abdel Hakim abu Jomaa has been soaked with buckets of water and showered with garbage. He's been pelted with rocks and menaced with assault rifles.

But the absolute worst was the day with the dogs.

Several weeks ago, he was up on a tower in Gaza City's Shajaiya neighborhood, preparing to shut off the area's electricity. A man tied two mean-looking dogs to the base of the tower and made him an offer he couldn't refuse.

"He said: 'If you turn it off, they stay here. If you leave it on, we'll take them home,' " Abu Jomaa recalled. "I left it on, of course, and got out of there."

The art of choosing battles is a basic survival skill for the 550 employees of the Gaza Electricity Distribution Co.

In late June, Israeli jets destroyed the power station that provided more than 40% of the Gaza Strip's electricity after militants killed two Israeli soldiers and captured a third. Since then, electrical workers have tried to stretch the remaining power supply, purchased from Israel, through rolling blackouts.

Three times a day -- at 8 a.m., 4 p.m. and midnight -- teams fan out to flip the switches on hundreds of transformers, bringing electricity to districts that have been without for eight hours and shutting off power to others.

"People either can't wait for us to arrive or don't want to see us coming," worker Wael Jundeya said. "It depends what time it is."

The workers have become targets for the anger of 1.4 million Gazans. Every stop is a potential fight, and fending off abuse is the routine.

"It's become their full-time job," said the utility company's general manager, Sulaiman abu Samhadana, who calls his employees "the most oppressed people in the Middle East."

(The only upside of the job? The firm is private sector, so unlike most Gazan civil servants, the workers have been getting paid lately -- about $400 a month.)

When the battered blue van carrying Jundeya, Hossam Berberi and supervisor Ahmed Wali arrived to shut off the transformer in the Shaaf neighborhood on a recent day, a workshop owner approached and pleaded for "just five more minutes."

"I'm not asking for the impossible. Just give us the full eight hours."

"Other people are waiting for their electricity, \o7ya hagg\f7," Jundeya replied, employing a common Arab honorific and trying to keep the temperature down.