Egypt to boost Gaza power supply to ease crisis

Egypt will let more fuel into Gaza and increase the amount of electricity it supplies to the Palestinian enclave, Palestinian and Egyptian officials said on Tuesday, a move to ease a power crisis that has embarrassed the ruling Hamas movement.  

The Egyptian government said the amount of electricity supplied to Gaza would be increased to 22 megawatts from an existing 17 megawatts already supplied for free. In addition, emergency diesel would also be supplied.   

"The increase comes in the framework of a quick attempt to relieve the suffering of the Palestinian people," Hassan Younes, the Egyptian minister responsible for electricity and power, said in a statement.   

Gaza depends heavily on fuel smuggled in from Egypt to keep its lone power station on line. But supplies were unexpectedly cut last week, forcing Hamas, which runs the coastal territory largely cut off by Israel, to impose lengthy blackouts.   

Many locals have accused Hamas of mismanaging the situation, relying too heavily on smuggled fuel, which it taxes heavily, rather than seeking alternative sources of energy via legal channels on which it could not impose levies.   

The crisis enabled the Palestinian Authority (PA), which holds sway in the West Bank and is often at loggerheads with Islamist Hamas, to intervene with Egypt and broker a deal.   

Gaza's energy supply is bad at the best of times, with a rickety infrastructure system badly degraded during fighting over the past five years between Israel and Hamas, which is committed to destroying the Jewish state.   

Reuters