Fears remerged again of a new energy crisis in the Gaza Strip, as fuel supplies from Qatar and Turkey are due to end in mid-April, MEMO reported.
The Gaza Energy and Human Resources Authority announced that it “will not be able to buy fuel at the price determined by the West Bank based Palestinian Authority, due to financial conditions resulting from Israel’s siege of the Gaza Strip.”
“The fuel supply for the two fuel refineries will have been exhausted by Thursday. This includes the Qatari supply which was worth $12 million and lasted for over three months and the grant from Turkey, which has supplied 8,000 tons of fuel for power,” the Gaza Energy Authority said.
Gaza buys necessary fuel to run the power plant at higher prices, resulting from taxes imposed by the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah.
The EU used to pay for fuel to operate Gaza Power Plant; at 1 point Ramallah took over that responsibility in exchange 4 EU salary support
— Marian Houk (@Marianhouk) April 5, 2017
The Energy and Human Resources Authority explained that it is not possible to buy fuel at the price set by the Palestinian Authority due to the high price resulting from additional taxes.
A member the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Talal Abu Zarifa, said: “for the last ten years the electricity crisis has become a source of political disruption.”
In an interview with Quds Press, he called on the Palestinian leadership “to implement projects that would end the electricity crisis permanently.”
Then, there were probs b/c Ramallah added extra fuel taxes for Gaza to reimburse, affecting Gaza Power Plant output, causing black-outs
— Marian Houk (@Marianhouk) April 5, 2017
The Gaza Strip has been enduring an electricity crisis for the last ten years. In 2006, Israel targeted the only power plant in the Gaza Strip, which struggles to operate on twelve hours of electricity per day.
(MEMO, PC, Social Media)
