Gaza power crisis returns with Jewish holidays

Gaza power crisis returns with Jewish holidays

 The electricity crisis in Gaza returned because of the Jewish holidays, during which Israel closed Gaza’s crossings and stopped entry of industrial fuel required to operate the only power station in the Gaza Strip.

Gaza electric company public relations director Jamal al-Dardasawi said in a statement Saturday that the Jewish holidays which began Thursday are responsible for the new crisis, since Israeli forces have stopped entry of industrial fuel used to operate the power station, causing one of the generators in the station to stall.

“We were informed Friday night by the plant’s operators that one of the operating generators would shut down in the station because the fuel necessary for running it ran out at 02:00 am. It was actually shut down at 02:20 am and one generator remained working in the station at a rate of 30 megs only,” Dardasawi said.

“This process cost the electric company production from the stalled generator, which produces 30 additional megs. Therefore, the company will be forced to modify a distribution program to correspond to this decline, so the program will become 8 hours for the areas against eight hours of electricity as long as the generator is stalled.” Al-Dardasawi added

Dardsawi said the shutdown should only last until Sunday until fuel arrives to the power plant.

He explained that the electricity crisis has always been in effect, and has recently been eased but not stopped.