GAZA CITY, 23 August 2007 — Gaza’s only power plant went back online yesterday after the European Union resumed paying for fuel supplies, ending days of blackouts after moves to ensure Hamas would not benefit from the aid.
“We received three trucks of fuel — enough for one day,” Rafiq Maliha, the chief of the station, said.
The distribution of power was gradually restored to full levels in areas that have received only intermittent supplies for days, resulting in blackouts in many areas of Gaza City. “We have started to partially distribute the electricity for the areas which were cut,” Jamal Al-Dadasawi, the spokesman for the Gaza electricity distribution company, told AFP.
“By the end of the day most of Gaza City will be covered,” he said.
As the levels of electricity returned to normal, however, Israel warned that it would cut its supply of power into the impoverished territory if fighters there did not stop firing rockets at it.
“If rocket fire continues against the Israeli power plant in Ashkelon, which provides 70 percent of electricity for the Gaza Strip, we will cut supplies from this plant,” Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer told public radio.
Fighters in Gaza regularly fire rockets and mortars into Israel, with most projectiles landing in open areas. The army regularly retaliates with deadly strikes against gunmen. Two children and 10 fighters have been killed in such operations in Gaza in the past three days. Gaza’s sole power plant — which according to the EU provides between 25 and 30 percent of the territory’s electricity — has not been fully operational for six days.
It shut down all but one of its generators late on Friday because of dwindling diesel supplies after Brussels suspended paying for the fuel following “security concerns.” The plant shut down completely on Sunday when the EU refused to resume the payments on fears that Hamas would divert some of the funds. The Islamists denied they would do this.
The European Union blacklists Hamas as a terror group and refuses to have any dealings with the movement that seized control of Gaza two months ago.
The bloc said on Tuesday that it would resume its financing on a provisional basis and conduct an audit to make certain that none of the revenues from the electricity produced would end up being pocketed by Hamas. “We have resumed the payments and in parallel, either today or tomorrow, we are going to start conducting an audit to assure ourselves that there is no diverting of funds on the part of Hamas,” Alix de Mauny, an EU spokeswoman, said yesterday.
The EU — the largest donor to the Palestinians, providing more than 400 million euros in aid so far in 2007 — has paid around six million euros each month to buy some 75 million liters of fuel for the plant since last November, she said.
Continuing the financing scheme will depend on the results of the audit, Brussels has said.
Meanwhile, a Hamas fighter was killed in an Israeli air raid in Gaza City early yesterday, medics said.
Two other members of the Hamas movement were wounded in the attack east of Gaza City, they added.
An Israeli Army spokesman said that the military carried out an air raid near the Nahal Oz border crossing between Israel and Gaza against “a group of terrorists, several of whom were hit.” President Abbas’ office issued a statement condemning “the Israeli escalation in Gaza and the crimes of killing in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.”
Yesterday’s death brings to 5,833 the number of people killed since the start of the second Palestinian uprising in September 2000, the vast majority of them Palestinians.
— With input from agencies
