Israel will cut electricity supplies to the Gaza Strip after an agreement with the Palestinian Authority to put pressure on Hamas. The decision is expected to shorten the daily average of four hours of power Gaza’s two million residents receive by 45 minutes, Israel’s security cabinet said.
Israel will cut electricity supplies to the Gaza Strip after an agreement with the Palestinian Authority to put pressure on Hamas. The decision is expected to shorten the daily average of four hours of power Gaza’s two million residents receive by 45 minutes, Israel’s security cabinet said.
Human rights groups have warned of a humanitarian crisis as the electricity shortages could leave schools, hospitals and businesses unable to operate fully. Clean water supplies have begun to dwindle as desalination plants are left without power.
It is not clear when the cuts are due to begin.
Hamas warned in a statement on Monday that the power cuts are “dangerous” and could lead to an “explosion”.
The West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA) blamed Hamas’s failure to reimburse it for electricity for the reduction in power supplies. However, PA spokesman Tareq Rashmawi coupled that explanation with a demand Hamas agree to unity initiatives of the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, which include holding the first parliamentary and presidential elections in more than a decade.
“We renew the call to the Hamas movement and the de facto government there to hand over to us all responsibilities of government institutions in Gaza so that the government can provide its best services to our people in Gaza,” he said.
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said Israel and the Palestinian Authority “will bear responsibility for the grave deterioration” in Gaza’s health and environmental situation.
Any worsening to Gaza’s power crisis – its only power plant is offline after running out of fuel in a Hamas-PA dispute over taxation – could cause the collapse of health services already reliant on standalone generators, many of them in a poor state of repair, Ashraf al-Qidra, spokesman for the health ministry in Gaza, said.
