A Gaza official said Monday that despite media reports to the contrary, the electricity crisis in Gaza has worsened.Remember all those (often staged) images of Gazans with candles that we saw when Gaza's electricity woes were blamed on Israel? I was wondering if there were any similar photos from the wire services showing Gazans using candles during the current electricity crisis that is entirely the fault of Palestinian Arabs.
Kin'an Obed, vice president of the Energy Authority in Gaza, said efforts to solve the fuel dispute had failed and scheduled daily power cuts of 8- to 12-hours continue.
Earlier this month, the sole power station in the Strip shut down for two days due to lack of fuel. Hospitals declared a state of emergency as life-saving equipment was left reliant on generators.
The Gaza government blamed the Palestinian Authority for failing to deliver fuel, while the PA said the Hamas-led government had neglected to transfer fuel payments to Ramallah.
In an effort to resolve the dispute, Obed said from September the government would deduct 170 shekels from salaries of employed residents earning above a certain threshold to enable payment to the PA.
Spokesman for the Gaza Energy Authority Jamal Ad-Dardasawi said only one generator at the power station is functional, and called on the Palestinian governments to put political rivalry aside and to resolve the crisis, particularly during the holy month of Ramadan.
The only results only further prove the bias of the wire services against Israel.
Here is one of the most recent "candle" photos, taken in late June by a service called Demotix, during a late June shutdown that had nothing to do with Israel. Demotix is a user-generated photo service, used by many major news outlets, but I do not know who writes the captions - presumably the photographer.
A fuel shortage due to Israel's blockade forced the main Gaza Strip power station to shut down leaving about half the residents of Gaza without electricity, a power plant official said. Gaza, Palestinian Territory. 26/06/2010.
Even when Gaza's electricity woes are entirely Arab-driven, the only photos of candles you can find still blame Israel.
(If someone wants to research and publicize how Demotix is evidently allowing individuals to lie about the news in ways that get believed by major news outlets, who do not bother to fact check these stories, feel free to go down that path.)