Gaza’s Energy Crisis Close to Tipping Point

February 21st, 2012

FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda

Palestine Chronicle
20 Feb, 2012

An energy crisis is currently hitting the Gaza Strip’s public services hard and could lead to a severe humanitarian crisis if a sustainable solution is not found soon.

“If the power plant does not resume its work in the next days, some hospitals will be left without electricity,” Mahmud Daher, officer-in-charge of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Gaza, told IRIN. Gaza’s only power plant was forced to shut down on 14 February due to a lack of fuel, which has previously been imported in amounts of up to one million litres a day from Egypt.

“The current crisis is a political problem that started six years ago. The Israeli occupation, the Palestinian Authority’s refusal to provide the Gaza Strip with funds, and the policy of Egypt which is dealing with Gaza out of security calculations, have all contributed to the current situation,” said Hamas government spokesman Fawzi Barhoum.

“Ismail Haniyah, [prime minister of Gaza] is in Egypt at the moment to discuss the crisis and to find a quick solution… But so far… no progress has been made… The whole of Gaza has been without electricity since last night,” he added.

Since the power plant stopped working, public hospitals and clinics have been running on only 20 percent of the 440,000 litres of fuel usually needed per day to supply the health system with electricity, Daher said, adding: “Some hospitals might withstand the crisis for one more week, some others no more than one or two days.”

Some fuel entered the Gaza Strip over on 18-19 February via tunnel from Egypt, but the amount was not sufficient for resumption of operations at the power plant, which requires more than 400,000 litres of diesel a day, and produces 80-85 megawatts (MW).

The Gaza Strip also receives around 120 MW of electricity from Israel. With the power plant shut down, the overall electricity deficit has reached more than 60 percent of normal supply.

Hassan Khalaf, Gaza’s deputy health minister, said Gaza had only had six hours of electricity a day for the past two weeks. “The nurseries, the ICUs [intensive care units], the operation rooms are all severely affected by that. The crisis is becoming a danger for the most vulnerable.”

Emergency fuel arrives from Egypt via Gaza tunnels

GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — A limited delivery of fuel arrived in the Gaza Strip on Monday, brought in through underground tunnels from Egypt, as the energy authority director said he expects a long term solution to the widespread blackouts to be agreed with Egypt this week.

The fuel has allowed the power authority to reactivate one of the four generators at Gaza’s sole power plant, the authority said in a statement.

The arrival of 300,000 liters of fuel is expected to provide Gaza’s 1.7 million residents with an additional two hours of electricity per day. Since the plant shut down last Tuesday, as deliveries were severely reduced from Egypt, Gaza has had only six hours of power each day.

Egypt had earlier pledged a much larger shipment. An Egyptian MP said Saturday that Egypt would begin pumping 500,000 liters of fuel into Gaza per day for the power plant and 100,000 for gas stations starting Sunday.