MIDDLE EAST:Gaza was plunged into darkness last night when its main power plant shut down after Israel halted fuel shipments under its new closure of the small, overcrowded strip of land.
"At least 800,000 people are now in darkness," said Derar Abu Sissi, general director of the plant. "The catastrophe will affect hospitals, medical clinics, water wells, houses, factories, all aspects of life." There were already large queues on the streets of Gaza yesterday at petrol stations and at warehouses selling cooking gas as the shortages began to take effect.
The closure came after a week of the most intense conflict between Israelis and Palestinians in Gaza for more than a year. Almost 40 Palestinians have been killed in the past week, at least 10 of whom were civilians. One Ecuadorian volunteer working on an Israeli kibbutz was shot dead by a Palestinian gunman on Tuesday.
Over the weekend Palestinian militants drastically reduced the number of makeshift rockets they fired into Israel. Israeli officials accused Palestinians of exaggerating the fuel crisis and said the blame lay with the militants.
There was swift condemnation of Israel yesterday from Israeli and western human rights groups and from the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
Rafik Maliha, a director of the power plant, said the last fuel shipment had arrived on Thursday. One turbine was closed down early in the day and the second turbine was turned off last night.
The Gaza power plant was built to provide 140 megawatts of electricity but has never operated at that level. At best, officials at the plant say it could produce 80MW. Early last week, before the closure was imposed, it was down to 45MW, enough to provide less than a fifth of the demand from Gaza's 1.5 million people. The rest of the electricity is bought from Israel and Egypt.
Israeli officials said the policy was directly linked to the rocket attacks. "If they stop the rockets today, everything would go back to normal," said Arye Mekel, a foreign ministry spokesman. He said the crisis was not as bad as Palestinian officials described. "They have an interest in exaggerating."
Oxfam said Israel was acting unlawfully: "After six months of blockade by the Israeli government, it is clear that this continuing act of collective punishment is ineffective as well as unlawful."