PA asserts its power by cutting power to Gaza


1) recent power shortages in Gaza; 2) OCHA infographic on electric power to Gaza; 3) John Reed on the ‘toxic rivalry’ of the PA and Hamas leading to the power shortage.

A Palestinian woman helps her son study, by candlelight, at their makeshift home in the Khan Younis refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip on 19 April 2017. AFP photo

Israel to cut over a quarter of electricity provided to Gaza

As part of a power struggle between the PA and Hamas, Abbas decides to cut down the amount of money the PA pays for Gaza’s electricity, leading Israel to reduce the electricity to the Strip accordingly.

By Elior Levy, Ynet
May 25, 2017

In two weeks’ time, Israel will cut over a quarter of the electricity it provides the Gaza Strip, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) announced Thursday.

Every month, Israel provides the Gaza Strip with 125 megawatts of electricity, which costs NIS 40 million on average. Israel takes that sum out of the tax money it collects for the Palestinian Authority.

Two months ago, the PA decided to stop paying that sum due to a power struggle with the Hamas government. The PA had demanded control over the Gaza Strip, including control over border crossings, as well as to receive the taxes Hamas collects from Palestinians in Gaza for services the PA provides.

Hamas rejected these demands outright, leading Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to gradually cut down on the services the PA provides the strip for as long as it has no control over the enclave.

Hamas, meanwhile, formed a committee to govern the Gaza Strip instead of the Palestinian unity government that sits in Ramallah, which Hamas claims does not take care of the strip’s needs.

At first, the PA informed COGAT it was no longer willing to pay for Gaza’s electricity. However it has recently softened its position, telling COGAT that starting next month it will pay NIS 25-30 million every month instead of NIS 40 million.

As a result, Israel has decided to reduce the electricity it provides the strip accordingly.

“Hamas prefers its own interests and those of its senior members,” said COGAT chief, Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai. “Every tunnel in the Gaza Strip has a generator, and only after that do the people get electricity. This failure is not ours. This is a conflict between Hamas and the PA. If Hamas decides the electricity will go to hospitals and civilians instead of Hamas members and Yahya Sinwar, the public in the Gaza Strip won’t have a problem.”

Because of the electricity crisis in the strip, an average Palestinian home gets about six hours of electricity per day.



Palestinian Authority cuts Gaza electricity in battle with Hamas

Abbas aims to pile pressure on Islamist group ahead of Trump meeting, observers believe

By John Reed in Gaza, Financial Times
April 27, 2017

The Palestinian Authority is cutting off electricity to Gaza in a move that will worsen the Mediterranean strip’s chronic blackouts and threaten basic services for its 2m people as a power struggle with Hamas, the Islamist group, escalates.

The PA, based in the West Bank, on Thursday told COGAT, the Israeli military co-ordinator for civilian activities in the Palestinian territories, that it would no longer pay for electricity supplied by Israel to Gaza. COGAT accounts for about a third of the demand in the impoverished enclave, which is governed by Hamas.

Hamas officials and observers in Gaza believe the PA’s decision is part of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas’s efforts to heap financial pressure on the Islamist group and reassert his government’s control over the strip ahead of his meeting with Donald Trump next week.

The US president says he wants to secure an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. But the toxic rivalry between the Palestinian factions has been one of the stumbling blocks behind the failure of previous efforts to revive the moribund peace process. It has also undermined Mr Abbas’s authority.

His decision to cut off power represents one of the most serious escalations of tensions between the Palestinian factions since they broke ranks violently in 2007. Hamas, which the US designates as a terrorist group, was left in control of Gaza, while Mr Abbas’ Fatah group runs the PA from the West Bank.

Hamas condemned the move to cut off electricity to the strip.

“Gaza will not kneel for collaborators with the occupation,” Sami Abu Zohri, Hamas spokesman, wrote on Twitter.


Palestinian youths in Rafah display crossed-out portraits of Pres. Mahmud Abbas and prime minister Rami Hamdallah during a protest against the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip on April 14, 2017. Khatib’s photo, Getty.

Gaza was already grappling with an electricity shortage. The strip’s sole power plant, which runs on diesel, has been idle since mid-April, after Mr Abbas’ government scrapped a longstanding tax exemption for the commodity, more than doubling the price of the fuel. Since then, Gaza residents have had electricity for six hours at a time, followed by 12-hour blackouts when they rely on generators or other back-up sources of power.

The PA also recently slashed the salaries of the PA’s more than 60,000 employees in Gaza by a third, delivering another blow to the enclave’s struggling economy.

Fati Alshaikh Khalil, the official responsible for power in Gaza, told the Financial Times: “Everyone knows this is about politics.”

The power crisis has forced hospitals in the strip to start cancelling non-emergency surgeries and reduce the time they offer patients diagnoses to two hours a day, according to a senior health official.

“This is rationalisation of services to the minimum,” said Mahmoud Daher, who heads the World Health Organization’s sub-office in Gaza.

The lack of power has also prompted authorities to idle Gaza’s largest desalination plant, and compromised the local water utility’s ability to pump drinking water and treat sewage.

“If not resolved quickly, today’s energy crisis may well push Gaza into a dangerous spiral,” said Robert Piper, a UN official. “Drastic electrical shortages are being felt in virtually every sector and every household.”

Gaza gets a small amount of power from Egypt, but the supply is unreliable because of unrest in Egypt’s Sinai region. Turkey and Qatar, leading donors to Gaza, have in the past stepped in to help pay for diesel. An Israeli official said payments for Israeli electricity, worth about NIS50m ($14m) a month, would now have to be made by the international community or private entities.

Mr Abbas is scheduled to meet Mr Trump in Washington on Wednesday and he will be seeking to convince the US president that he is able to rein in extremist groups and assure him that the Palestinians can be serious negotiating partners.

“Abu Mazen [Mr Abbas] is afraid that if he goes to meet with Trump and has no control of Gaza, he will be accused of being weak . . . and could not be taken as a serious partner,” said Mkhaimar Abusada, a professor of political science at Al-Azhar University in Gaza City.

Mr Trump has said that he wants to pursue a peace deal with the help of Arab states that might or might not be based on the two-state solution. Palestinian officials have condemned any notion of dropping the two-state solution.

Gaza’s electricity consumption

Demand: About 400-450mw per 24 hours
Supply: From Israel: 125mw
From Egypt: about 25mw
From the power plant: about 60mw

[Total= c.210mw per 24 hours]

Source: Cogat, UN

At least it’s not January which is when Khalil Hamra of AP took this photo

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