The Gaza Strip's sole power plant shut down on Saturday for lack of diesel fuel, a Palestinian power authority official said. Kanaan Obeid, assistant director of Gaza's electricity authority, said the plant, which provides 25 percent of Gaza's power, was forced to shut down due to a payment dispute between the strip's Hamas rulers and the rival Palestinian administration in the West Bank.
The power plant has closed down on several occasions in the past because of fuel shortages. The Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority says Hamas is to blame for the crisis, accusing it of allowing tens of thousands of salaried Gazans not to pay their bills and thereby share in the cost of industrial fuel for the plant. But the Islamic movement Hamas has pointed the finger at the PA and accused it of worsening Israel's blockade on Gaza.
Closing the power plant has added to existing chronic power outages at a time when temperatures regularly exceed 30 degrees C (90 F) and demand for air conditioning and refrigeration peak, forcing residents to rely even more on diesel generators. The industrial diesel needed to run the power plant comes through an Israeli-controlled fuel terminal.
The quantity of fuel brought in to Gaza has declined since November, when the European Commission transferred responsibility for buying the fuel to the PA after its aid programme expired. Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum on Saturday called for a rethink. "We are asking the donors, the European Union, to discuss resuming direct funding for the fuel," he said in a written statement.
Obeid said Gaza was waiting for the PA to pay the Israelis so that the flow of fuel could resume and the plant be restarted. PA officials in Ramallah could not be reached for comment on Saturday. Israel supplies about 70 percent of Gaza's power and Egypt provides five percent, with the remainder coming from the power plant, which even when it is running frequently has to ration electricity supply because of fuel shortages. Hamas and the PA have been fiercely divided since the Islamists violently seized power in Gaza in 2007.