Electricity blackout in the Gaza Strip due to fuel shortage

Date: 17 / 08 / 2007 Time: 19:05

MaanImages Gaza – Ma'an –

The director of the only power station in the Gaza Strip has announced that three out of its four electricity generators are to be switched off because of a shortage of fuel supplies, leaving more than half of the Gaza Strip without electricity.

At a news conference Rafik Maliha said that the generators would be stopped from six in the evening local time (3 p.m. GMT), on Friday until Sunday morning. If more fuel supplies do not arrive at the power station by then, the fourth generator will also be switched off, he said. This will leave the crisis-stricken area almost completely without electricity.

Maliha denied that the power station had any strategic fuel stocks. He said that since Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in June, Israel has only supplied fuel to keep the generators working and that it had not been possible to amass a stockpile.

He said that it was the security situation in the Gaza Strip that was preventing the Israeli army trucks from bringing the desperately-needed fuel supplies into area.

Most residents of the Gaza Strip depend on the Gaza power station for their electricity supply but some residents of the southern Gaza Strip receive their supply from the Egyptian Electricity Company.

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