Power Outage in Gaza: eight to twelve hours a day

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PressTV - Gazan suffer from power outages under siege:

Tue Feb 15, 2011 8:30PM
Ashraf Shannon, Press TV, Gaza

"Continued blackouts of eight to twelve hours a day in many parts of the Gaza strip, are affecting the provision of essential services, including water supplies, medical treatments and bakeries.

Only one of the two generators in Gaza's sole power plant is running due to lack of fuel.

Power outages have become a part of life under the Israeli siege, and energy supplies such as cooking gas, diesel and gasoline are unpredictable even at the best of times.

Most of the industrial grade diesel fuel needed to run the power plant comes through an Israeli-controlled fuel terminal, with Israel setting strict import quotas. Often the generator relies on fuel transferred through underground tunnels from Egypt.

Health officials in Gaza are warning of a health crisis in the making due to continued power outages and fuel for hospital backup generators.

Hospital backup generators consume twenty thousand liters of fuel a day.

Israel reduced the amount of fuel imports into Gaza by 30% in 2007, as a method to put pressure on the Hamas-led government.

Bakeries are also struggling to meet the demands of customers in light of the power outages.

After the recent Egyptian revolution, the Hamas government has called on the care-taker leadership of Egypt to supply Gaza with electricity and other badly needed supplies.

At the moment, Gazans are highly dependent on small and noisy electric generators to provide them with the essentials they need in their daily lives. But many here hope that the new leadership in Egypt will open the Rafah border and end the illegal Israeli siege.



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