Before it hits midnight, and just like Cinderella, Lebanese rush home before electricity is cut off, and before generators are turned off. In the mid of summer season, they sleep without air-conditions, given the shortage in diesel and the difficulty of securing it even from the black market, at a price exceeding seven thousand more than the official price,  if found, and the harsh rationing hours, which amounted to twenty hours a day, the Generator Owners’ Assembly decided unanimously that they will no longer buy diesel from the black market and will operate their generators until they run out of diesel.

Head of the Generators’ Association, Abdo Saadeh, told “Sawt Beirut International” correspondent Ghida Jbeili, “We want a radical solution and not a partial one, that is why we said give us 8 hours of electricity and we will provide 16 hours, we have declared that we will no longer buy diesel from the black market,” stressing that “ We reject the patchwork policy and we have proposed a solution because we do not want subscribers to remain an hour without electricity, and as I said, let the Electricity of Lebanon provide 8 hours, and provide us with diesel at official price.  We are waiting for the mechanism that we proposed to proceed.”
Even tranquilizers are no longer useful to alleviate the successive crises. The Lebanese are accustomed to scenes of humiliation in front of gas stations, pharmacies and supermarkets, as well as to power cuts and the complete dark streets. It is a strange country, where crises cannot be resolved with temporary solutions.