Rights group fears Gaza fuel ‘catastrophe’

RAMALLAH — An Israeli rights group warned on Thursday that cutting power to the Gaza Strip would have "catastrophic consequences" after Israel said the Palestinian Authority was refusing to pay the bill.

Hit by the bitter rivalry between the strip's Islamist Hamas rulers and the rival Palestinian Authority (PA), Gaza's only power plant shut down this month for lack of fuel, caused by a payment dispute.

Gazans are now getting at best only a few hours of electricity each day.

Things got bleaker still on Thursday when the Israeli defence ministry body responsible for the Palestinian territories said it had been notified by the West Bank-based PA that it would no longer pick up the bill for electricity streamed to Gaza directly from Israel.

"The Palestinian Authority informed the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) that it would stop paying for the electricity Israel supplies to Gaza, with immediate effect," COGAT said in a statement.

It did not say that as a consequence it would pull the plug, but the possibility alarmed Israeli rights group Gisha.

"Residents of Gaza cannot endure an interruption of the electricity supply from Israel and cuts of the kinds discussed would have catastrophic consequences," it said in a statement.

"Reducing the volume of electricity supplied by Israel to the Strip is a red line that cannot be crossed."

 In its Ramallah headquarters, the PA refused to comment on the COGAT statement.

If confirmed, the move by the PA could be a sign of renewed confrontation with Hamas, which violently ousted it from Gaza in 2007 and has blocked its attempts to regain influence there.

On April 4 the PA, headed by Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas, announced it would temporarily cut stipends to its Gaza civil servants thrown out of their jobs in the Hamas takeover.

The PA said it was forced into cutbacks by falling foreign aid.

But others said it could be politically motivated, to stir up discontent in Gaza and destabilise the Hamas administration there. 

Gisha said that with the shutdown of the Gaza power plant, the 120 megawatts of electricity flowing through cables from Israel accounts for more than 80 per cent of the power currently available to Gaza.

Egypt, which borders Gaza, also helps.

UN Coordinator for Humanitarian Aid and Development Activities, Robert Piper, called on Thursday for all sides, and the international community, to work together to halt the decline.

"With power outages at 20 hours a day and emergency fuel supplies running out, basic services are grinding to a halt," he said in a statement.

"According to the Gaza ministry of health, fuel to power back-up generators at seven out of 13 hospitals in Gaza is expected to run out within three days," he said, adding his agency was allocating $500,000 to buy emergency fuel supplies.