Sunday, March 25, 2018
Elder of Ziyon
Arab media are reporting that the Gaza power plant was shut down Saturday night due to lack of fuel.
Fuel trucks that were supposed to come from Egypt never arrived. It is unclear whether this is because of Egyptian, PA or Hamas actions.
At the moment, Gaza is getting 100% of its power - 120 mW - from Israeli electricity lines. The smaller Egyptian lines seem to be down as well. Gazans are now on a schedule of 4 hours of power followed by a 16 hour shutoff.
Interestingly, the "side" entrance from Egypt to Gaza, the Saladin gate which bypasses Israeli security checks at Kerem Shalom, was opened yesterday and 147 trucks entered with materials including cement. No fuel trucks went through that entrance, however. It appears that Hamas managed to negotiate this with Egypt, bypassing the PA and avoiding paying PA taxes on imports that come through Rafah (while, presumably, Hamas imposes its own taxes at this crossing.)
