A humanitarian crisis is underway as the Gaza Strip's only power plant
began to shut down on Sunday, and the tiny coastal territory entered
its third full day without shipments of vital food and fuel supplies
due to Israel's punitive sanctions.
The Gaza Strip's power plant has completely shut down on Sunday because
it no longer has the fuel needed to keep running. One of the plant's
two electricity-generating turbines had already shut down by noon.
This will drastically reduce output to 25 or 30 megawatts, down from
the 65 megawatts the plant produces under normal conditions. By Sunday
evening the plant will shut down completely, leaving large swaths of
the Gaza Strip in darkness.
Omar Kittaneh, the head of the Palestine Energy Authority in Ramallah,
confirmed that by tonight, the one remaining operating turbine will be
powered down, and the Gaza power plant will no longer be generating any
electricity at all.
“We have asked the Israeli government to reverse its decision and to
supply fuel to operate the power plant”, Dr. Kittaneh said. “We have
talked to the Israeli humanitarian coordination in their Ministry of
Energy [National Infrastructure]. We say this is totally Israel’s
responsibility, and that reducing the fuel supplies until the plant had
to shut down will affect not only the electrical system but the water
supply, and the entire infrastructure in Gaza – everything.”
After months of increasingly harsh sanctions, Israel imposed a total
closure on the Strip's border crossings, even preventing the delivery
of humanitarian aid. The Israeli government says the closure is
punishment for an ongoing barrage of Palestinian homemade projectiles
fired from the Gaza Strip.
"Famine"
180 fuel stations have shut down after Gaza residents to buy gas for ,,,,ing.
A Palestinian economist Hasan Abu Ramadan said the current humanitarian
disaster in the Gaza Strip will be deepened by the blockade on fuel and
food supplies. He warned that Gaza Strip could go from a situation of
deep poverty to all out famine, disease, and malnutrition.
Abu Ramadan said that more than 80% of the Strip's 1.5 million
residents have been surviving with the help of food aid from
international organizations such as UNRWA for Palestinian refugees.
International condemnation
Most international actors in the region believe there already is a
humanitarian crisis in Gaza, including the UN's Emergency Relief
Coordinator, the Undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs John
Holmes, who said at a press conference at UNHQ in New York on Friday
that "This kind of action against the people in Gaza cannot be
justified, even by those rocket attacks".
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon expressed particular concern, in a
statement issued later on Friday through his spokesperson, about the
"decision by Israel to close the crossing points in between Gaza and
Israel used for the delivery of humanitarian assistance. Such action
cuts off the population from much-needed fuel supplies used to pump
water and generate electricity to homes and hospitals".
The UN Human Rights Council's Special Rapporteur on the situation of
human rights in the occupied territories, John Dugard, also issued a
much sharper statement on Friday, saying that Israel must have foreseen
the loss of life and injury to many nearby civilians when it targeted
the Ministry of Interior building in Gaza City.
This, and the killings of other Palestinians during the week, plus the
closures, "raise very serious questions about Israel's respect for
international law and its Commitment to the peace process", Dugard
said. He said it violates the strict prohibition on collective
punishment contained in the Fourth Geneva Convention, and one of the
basic principles of international humanitarian law: that military
action must distinguish between military targets and civilian targets.
Source:
Maan
:.اللجنة الشعبية لمواجهة الحصار.:freegaza.ps@gmail.com
الأحد يناير 18, 2009 1:49 pm
