The only power plant in Gaza city in Palestine has been forced to shut down for the second time in two weeks due to a fuel shortage, the energy authority said on Tuesday.
Energy officials appealed to Egypt to provide Gaza with a sufficient amount of fuel to allow regular operation of the plant, adding that the disruptions were inflicting a heavy toll on the 1.7 million Palestinian residents of the blockaded strip.
The power station had only re-started operations eight days ago, reactivating one of four generators when emergency fuel supplies arrived from Egypt.
A crisis in fuel supplies shut the plant on February 14, plunging Gaza into up to 18 hour blackouts per day.
Earlier on Tuesday, Egyptian security forces stopped four trucks containing more than 7,000 litres of diesel fuel bound for the Gaza Strip via underground tunnels, and arrested four ‘Egyptian smugglers’.
Egypt wants to stop the use of underground tunnels for delivery of Egyptian fuel purchased by Palestinian authorities, and has severely reduced supply through the tunnel network, prompting an energy crisis in the coastal enclave.
Egyptian and Gazan officials said last week they had reached a deal which includes longer-term measures to increase the capacity of Gaza’s sole power plant and link Gaza’s electricity grid to Egyptian infrastructure.
On Sunday, as part of the first stage of the agreement, Egypt increased its power supply to the Gaza Strip from 17 to 22 megawatts, but the energy authority warned the measure was not sufficient to allay the crisis.
The shorter-term requirement is the delivery of fuel into Gaza, but a disagreement on the route of the fuel still appeared to be pending agreement.
The Gaza government is pressing for the Rafah terminal between the countries to be equipped for fuel transfer, and is reluctant to accept fuel to be delivered via the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing.
An international aid group Oxfam said in a press release on Sunday that the crisis was having a disproportionate effect on women, who bear the load of domestic work, and leaving children in Gaza ‘stressed and scared’, quoting local partner organisation the Women’s Affairs Centre.
Meanwhile in Ramallah hunger striker Khader Adnan is in a stable condition after undergoing surgery on his intestine.
Raed Mahamid a lawyer for the Palestinian detainees’ centre said last Tuesday that he had been on hunger strike for 66 days and after visiting Adnan in Zeev hospital in northern Israeli town Safed that his condition is good.
He added that he is recovering from the anaesthesia used during the operation.
Adnan underwent surgery after reporting severe pain in his abdomen two days ago, caused by an intestinal blockage, after he went for two months without food.
Israeli officials announced last week that they intend to release Adnan on April 17, shortly before his administrative detention term was set to end, and would not renew the order.
In return, Adnan agreed to end his hunger strike, the longest ever held by a Palestinian prisoner.
In Bethlehem a Female prisoner, Hana Shalabi, is being held under the same regulations permitting detention without charge.
She started a hunger strike on February 16 after she was re-arrested, despite being freed in a prisoner swap deal in October.
Islamic Jihad said last Monday that they hold the Israeli authorities responsible for female detainee Hana Shalabi, who is currently on day 12 of her hunger strike in protest against Israeli administrative detention.
The movement praised her protest against ‘inhumanity’ describing her actions as an intifada against Israeli policies.
Hana Shalabi, from the northern West Bank village Burqin, is being held without charge since her detention on February 16.
She announced her hunger strike immediately after soldiers seized her from the family’s Jenin-district home.
Shalabi was freed in October 2011 when Hamas secured the release of more than 1,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails in exchange for a captured Israeli soldier.
She had spent 25 months in administrative detention, under procedures that allow Israel to detain Palestinians for renewable terms of six months without pressing charges, using laws dating back to the British Mandate period.
Israeli forces shot and killed a man overnight last Monday along the Egypt-Israel border.
Israeli soldiers patrolling the border with Egypt identified a group of ‘suspects’ who had reportedly ‘entered the country illegally’.
The Israel army said that ‘After failing to comply with orders to stop, soldiers and the group exchanged gunfire.’
One man was killed and the the Israeli army claim that the rest of the group fled back to Egypt.
Meanwhile in Jerusalem a five-minute walk from the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem, Al-Quds cinema has resumed screening movies after a 26-year halt following the outbreak of the first intifada.
The 81-seat theatre was packed out last Saturday, with viewers squeezing into the staircases to watch two Palestinian movies directed by Einas Muzhaffar and Ahmad Habash.
Al-Quds, the name of Jerusalem in Arabic, is one of three movie theatres in the holy city that shut down when the intifada broke out.
In 2007, Palestinian non-profit Yabous Cultural Centre started refurbishing the Al-Quds building.
The cinema on al-Zahra street was founded in 1950.
When the uprising against Israeli occupation started in 1987, the political climate kept viewers from movie theatres across Jerusalem and the West Bank, and many closed in dire financial straits.
The Yabous foundation, established in 1995, decides to restore the site and turn it into a cultural centre to revitalise Palestinian artistic life in the city.
Large numbers of Jerusalem-based Palestinian cultural and political organisations have shut down after the city was cut off from Palestinians in the West Bank by Israel’s separation wall and permit system, and Israeli authorities exercised control over allocation of funds and political activities in the city.
Israel annexed the eastern sector of Jerusalem, the intended capital of a future Palestinian state, after a 1967 war.
It’s control over Jerusalem has never been recognised by the international community.
Yabous foundation director Rania Elias said: ‘The idea behind refurbishing the Al-Quds movie theatre and turning it to a cultural centre is to strengthen Palestinian cultural, patriotic and human values and to maintain a local, Arab and international dimension to the city’.
She added that the foundation had serious financial troubles before they were able to complete the work, and followed Israel’s rigorous planning regulations to safeguard the building from demolition threats.
Al-Quds now has three halls: the Morocco hall, paying tribute to Moroccan funding, will host exhibitions, music and dance, the Faisal al-Husseini hall, which still has some work pending but will seat 420, and the movie theatre.
After a lapse of 26 years, viewers can now watch Arab and international films, bring children to special youth screenings, and anticipate festivals and education programs, in the hoped-for capital city of Palestine.