Fuel-hit Gaza power plant resumes limited operations
Strip's sole power plant forced to shut down on Friday for lack of fuel, with Israel and Palestinians blaming each other for shortages
Suheil Skeik, the director of Gaza's electricity distribution company, said industrial fuel was being pumped in from Israel but only in limited amounts.
"This does not solve the crisis and the electricity will be reduced from 12 hours a day to eight hours," he said.
Since March 3, the facility had been producing only 30 megawatts of electricity, or 38% of its full capacity.
Palestinian officials blamed the shortage in industrial diesel needed to power the plant on an Israeli blockade of Gaza tightened in June 2007 after the Islamist Hamas movement seized control of the territory.
But the Israeli military said the shut-down was caused by a feud between the Islamist Hamas movement ruling Gaza and the Western-backed Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.
It said the Palestinians had stopped buying fuel in recent days after Hamas failed to pay its share of the costs.
Imports decline
The industrial diesel needed to run the power plant – which supplies about 25% of Gaza's energy – comes through an Israeli-controlled fuel terminal, with Israel setting import quotas.
The imports have declined since November when the European Commission transferred responsibility for buying the fuel to the Palestinian Authority, after its aid program expired.
Fuel supplies were particularly low in recent weeks, partly because there were no deliveries for two days over the recent Jewish Passover holiday.
Only 550,000 liters (145,294 gallons) were delivered this week, and 721,660 liters (190,642 gallons) the week before that, compared with the 3.5 million liters (924,602 gallons) a week normally needed to operate the plant, according to the OXFAM aid group.
Israel supplies about 70%of Gaza's power and Egypt provides five percent, with the remainder from the power plant which has had to shut down several times in the past because of fuel shortages.
