Power cuts plagued the Gaza Strip anew on Monday as the European Union was reviewing whether to renew its financing of fuel deliveries for the impoverished territory’s sole power plant.
Gaza City hummed with the sound of generators and candles disappeared off supermarket shelves as residents stocked up on supplies on the fourth day of intermittent power supplies in one of the world’s most densely populated places.
“Our life is becoming more and more difficult,” said Umm Jaber, a 40-year-old mother of six in Gaza City. “They’ve closed the borders, they’ve cut jobs. Today they’ve cut the electricity, tomorrow they’ll cut the air for us.”
The power cuts were the latest blow to hit the territory that has been effectively sealed off by Israel since the Islamist movement Hamas seized control two months ago, sparking fears of a humanitarian crisis.
They also marked the latest point of contention between the Western-shunned Islamists and the Western-backed Palestinian government in the occupied West Bank, as the two sides blamed each other for the cuts.
The power cuts began late on Friday, when Gaza’s only power plant — which according to the European Union provides between 25% and 30% of the territory’s power — shut down all but one of its generators because its diesel supplies dwindled after Israel shut the fuel border crossing on security concerns.
Israel reopened the crossing on Sunday, but diesel for the plant was not delivered because the EU — which finances the supplies — suspended payments out of “security concerns”, forcing the plant to shut down completely.
“We are still assessing the situation” and hope to resume supplies either later on Monday or Tuesday, an EU spokesperson in Jerusalem said.
The power cuts have become a new source of tension between Hamas and President Mahmoud Abbas’s government in Ramallah.
“We warned for weeks that Gaza would fall into darkness if Hamas does not stop occupying the electricity company and does not stop holding on to millions of shekels that they collected from the people of Gaza,” Information Minister Riyad al-Malki told reporters in Ramallah.
“The people in Gaza, in every home and every house, must go into the street and say to Hamas ‘you are responsible for this crime’.”
In Gaza, Hamas’s parliamentary bloc said Abbas’s government, headed by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, which it refuses to recognise, was to blame.
“President Abbas and the Fayyad government are responsible for this criminal cut in electricity,” it said in a statement. “We call on people to protest against his act.
“We call on the European donors to reconsider their decision, which was made because of lies and political provocation by the government” in Ramallah, it said. “This decision is inhumane and could badly affect the Palestinian nation.” — AFP