Israel reduces power supply to Hamas-ruled Gaza

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According to Gisha, an Israel-based human rights group, Israel has been selling 120 megawatts to Gaza, supplied through ten power lines, with each line carrying 12 megawatts.

Gaza authorities have warned of impending health and environmental crisis because of the power shortages.

Before the latest reduction, Israel had supplied the Gaza Strip with 120 megawatts of electricity (out of 450 megawatts needed), which now represents the strip's main source of energy after its only functioning power plant went offline in April.

The decision will shorten the daily average of four hours of power to Gaza's two million residents by 45 minutes, Israel's security cabinet said.

While Hamas has sworn to annihilate the Jewish state and invests most of its resources towards that objective, Israel has continued to provide limited power to Gaza, paid for by the Palestinians, in order to prevent a humanitarian crisis on its doorstep and assuming that more instability could lead to renewed attacks on Israel by Hamas.

The PNA's decision is largely seen as a mean to pressure the Palestinian Islamist movement of Hamas.

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Palestinian children fill jerrycans with drinking water from public taps in the southern Gaza Strip, June 11, 2017.

The UN humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, Robert Piper, said Gaza's hospitals, water supply, waste water treatment and sanitation services have already been dramatically cut back since mid-April, and depended nearly exclusively on a UN emergency fuel operation. "The people in Gaza should not be held hostage to this longstanding internal Palestinian dispute".

In a statement on Wednesday, Hamas said Israel and Abbas were jointly responsible for the "catastrophic consequences" of the reduction.

"Israel today is the only one supplying electricity to the Gaza Strip, but unfortunately, there are problems between Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the PA in Ramallah, which caused the PA to decide not to pay for the electricity", Mordechai noted.

The prospect of even lengthier blackouts in Gaza has raised fears of a new upsurge in violence.

Israel and Hamas are bitter enemies that have fought three wars over the past decade.

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